German modernist painter, also noted as the wife of the painter Hans Purrmann. Like most successful women artists of the time, she was ignored or neglected by art historians. Her preserved work, which consists of around 360 oil paintings and watercolours, was rediscovered in her estate in 1999 and made known to the public through several exhibitions.
Mathilde Vollmoeller came from a family of Protestant theologians, scientists and entrepreneurs. Her father, Robert Vollmöller (1849-1911), founded one of the largest German and European textile companies of his time and was one of the pioneers of a social market economy that put the interests of employees on an equal footing with those of entrepreneurs. Her mother, Emilie Vollmöller (née Behr), was a committed representative of Christian social ethics and stood for equality and women’s emancipation. Together with her husband, she founded some exemplary social institutions in what is now Stuttgart-Vaihingen.
Mathilde Vollmoeller had nine siblings, including the poet Karl Gustav Vollmoeller, with whom she was privately taught at a young age and Martha Müller (née Vollmöller, 1883–1955), who was one of the first female high school graduates in Württemberg and the first four students in Tübingen at the beginning of the 20th century. Her brother Hans Robert Vollmöller (1889-1917) was a pioneer aircraft and test pilot who died during a test flight near Berlin. Her brother Kurt Vollmöller (1890-1936) was a writer who published novels and several stories around 1930.
Mathilde Vollmoeller-Purrmann died on 17 July 1943 at age 66 after a long illness in Munich.
Link to Wikipedia biography (German)