MUNCH, Edvard
Norwegian painter and lithographer, his country’s greatest artist. He was concerned with the expressive representation of emotions and personal relationships in his work.
He was associated with the international development of Symbolism during the 1890s and recognized as a major influence on Expressionism. His early work was conventionally naturalistic; by 1884, he belonged to the avant-garde circle of the painter Christian Krøhg, and was part of the world of bohemian artists in Christiana (now Oslo) who had advanced ideas on ethics and sexual morality.
During his stays in Paris between 1889 and 1892 Munch was influenced by the symbolists, Vincent van Gogh, and, above all, Paul Gauguin; it was during this time that he established his characteristic nervous linear style. In 1892 he was invited to exhibit at the Kunstlerverein (Artists’ Union) in Berlin and his work caused such an uproar in the press that the exhibition was closed after a week with the repercussions leading to the formation of the Berlin Sezession in 1899.
The scandal made him famous overnight in Germany, so Munch moved there and from 1892 to 1908 lived mainly in Berlin with frequent stays in Norway and visits also to France and Italy. In Berlin, he was associated with writers such as Richard Dehmel and August Strindberg and created works featuring his recurrent themes of sexual awareness, illness, jealousy, and insanity. These intense and disturbing works reflected not only Symbolist preoccupations but Munch’s difficulties stemming from his own traumatic childhood during which his mother and sister died and his father nearly went mad. While in Berlin he produced his first prints, with lithographs and woodcuts becoming equally important to his paintings.
In the 1890s Munch dedicated himself to an ambitious multi-canvas series called The Frieze of Life. Though the series was never completed, the twenty-two canvases Munch did produce extended his obsessive exploration of sexuality and mortality. The Frieze of Life included Munch’s iconic image of modern angst, The Scream; as with many of his paintings, he created several versions of it. Part of the series was translated by Munch into etching, lithography, or woodcut. The woodcuts (often in colour) are particularly impressive, exploiting the grain of the wood to contribute to their rough, intense vigour.
In 1908 he suffered a nervous breakdown, the legacy of heavy drinking, overwork, and a wretched love affair. After the rehabilitation in 1909, he returned permanently to Norway, deliberately abandoning his disturbing themes as part of his recovery. He largely turned away from images of private despair and anguish and created more colourful, optimistic paintings. His work became more outgoing, his palette brighter, and his themes more optimistic although his self-portraits retained their earlier intensity. After 1916 Munch became increasingly reclusive and his work regained some of its earlier urgency. The great achievement of this period is a series of large oil paintings for the University Hall of Oslo (1910-15) exalting the positive forces of nature, science, and history.
In 1916 he settled at Ekely, outside Oslo, thenceforth living a solitary life. At his death, he left over 20,000 works to the city of Oslo to create the Munch Museum.
During Munch’s lifetime, there were many exhibitions of his work in Oslo, Prague, Stockholm, and German cities.