German painter Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907) is getting long overdue recognition in Paris, the city that she loved and that inspired her. The Museum of Modern Art is making a strong case for her to be moved up in the index of art history.

The retrospective “An Intensely Artistic Eye,” on show through August 21, shows the journey of the little-known artist over her brief career of 10 years.

“It’s important that the artist comes back to Paris, a city that fascinated her,” said curator Julia Garimorth.

Becker first visited Paris at the age of 23 and had four significant subsequent stays in France where she briefly studied under Rodin and found creative direction in the work of Cézanne and Gauguin.

Early portraits were lifelike, such as “Seated Old Woman with Hands Crossed in her Lap,” in which the subject’s every wrinkle detailed in such stunning realism that it could almost be a photograph.

After her encounter with French Post-Impressionism and the Egyptian Fayum mummy portraits at the Louvre, Becker’s faces became simplified shapes, flat and more rigid with the person’s essence emanating from the eyes. Garimorth said Becker was drawn to the idea of an “entire life in one image.”

“This is exactly what she sought. A synthesis,” said Garimorth.

She exalted women in her paintings, depicting them in scenes of motherhood holding or nursing a child. Gauguin’s influence is apparent with Becker’s women holding citrus fruits. In solemn portraits in which the backgrounds appear to be extensions of the young girls, several seem to capture a glimpse of the subject’s eventual adult face, such as “Young Girl Holding Yellow Flowers in a Glass,” and “Young Girl at the Clock Weight.”

Becker was a close friend of poet Rainer Maria Rilke, who wrote “Requiem for a Friend” for her after she died in 1907 at the age of 31. However, Rilke never publicly endorsed her as an artist.

Like Rilke, Becker was devoted to the interior life and expressed her exploration of identity in self-portraits. Long before Kim Kardashian posted a birthday-suit selfie, Becker was the first woman to paint a nude self-portrait when she was pregnant.

In later works, Becker relied on sharpened intuition and painted from memory. One of her final paintings was a Nabis-influenced portrait of an old German poorhouse woman Becker thought had prophetic powers.

Despite self-portraits that show the artist content, sometimes with the seed of a smile, Garimorth said Becker’s journals reveal that she suffered. She said the artist’s only goal was to continue advancing.

Garimorth said Becker often wrote, “I have to become someone,” yet her most common public status was “the wife of…”

She had little public presence as an artist in her lifetime, selling only two or three works according to Garimorth. But, this was her “luck,” she says. “She had the possibility to experiment. “She had absolutely no recognition. But she was free.”

“Paula Modersohn-Becker: An Intensely Artistic Eye” is on show through August 21 at Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 11 Avenue du Président Wilson, 75116 Paris, France