Background
Munch was born on December 12, 1863 in the village of Adalsbruk in Løten, Norway; the son of Laura Catherine Bjølstad and Christian Munch.
Munch's grave at the Cemetery of Our Saviour, Oslo
Munch was born on December 12, 1863 in the village of Adalsbruk in Løten, Norway; the son of Laura Catherine Bjølstad and Christian Munch.
Munch enrolled at the Kristiania Technical College (nowadays Kristiania University College) in 1879 to study engineering, but left only a year later when his passion for art overtook his interest in engineering. In 1881, he entered the Royal School of Art and Design of Kristiania (nowadays Oslo), where his teachers were sculptor Julius Middelthun and painter Christian Krohg.
Munch began his artistic career in 1883, when he made his debut at the large Industry and Art Exhibition in Kristiania (nowadays Oslo). During his early years, he experimented with many styles, including Naturalism and Impressionism. In 1885, Edvard travelled abroad for the first time, with financial support from Frits Thaulow. He first went to Antwerp, where he exhibited a portrait of his sister Inger at the World Exhibition in April and May.
Munch exhibited four paintings at the 1886 Autumn Exhibition, including one of his main works "The Sick Child" (exhibited as "Study"). Six Edvard’s paintings were exhibited at the same exhibition in 1887. The following year, he saw a large exhibition of French art in Copenhagen and met the Danish painter Johan Rohde. In April and May 1889, Munch organized his first solo exhibition in the Student Society in Kristiania, showing 63 paintings and 46 drawings.
Munch arrived in Paris during the festivities of the Exposition Universelle of 1889 and roomed with two fellow Norwegian artists. His picture "Morning", 1884 was displayed at the Norwegian pavilion. In Paris, Munch visited the World Exhibition and Salon des Indépendants. In December 1889 his father died. His personal tragedies and psychological idiosyncrasies evolved into a symbolic art form that expressed more internal emotion and feeling than projected an image of outside reality.
By 1892, Munch formulated his characteristic, and original, Synthetist aesthetic, as seen in "Melancholy", 1891, in which color is the symbol-laden element. Also in 1892, he held a major solo exhibition in Tostrupgården by the Parliament building. The same year Adelsteen Normann, on behalf of the Union of Berlin Artists, invited Munch to exhibit in Berlin.
In December 1892, Edvard settled in Berlin, where he painted the Swedish author August Strindberg, among others. During his four years in Berlin, he sketched out most of the ideas that would comprise his major work "The Frieze of Life" first designed for book illustration but later expressed in paintings. His other paintings, including casino scenes, show a simplification of form and detail which marked his early mature style. In March 1895, Munch exhibited his work together with Akseli Gallen-Kallela at Ugo Baroccio's gallery.
In 1896, Munch moved to Paris, where he focused on graphic representations of his "Frieze of Life" themes. He further developed his woodcut and lithographic technique. His "Self-Portrait with Skeleton Arm", 1895 is done with an etching needle-and-ink method. Edvard also produced multi-colored versions of "The Sick Child", concerning tuberculosis, which sold well, as well as several nudes and multiple versions of "Kiss", 1892.
In 1897, Munch returned to Kristiania, where he also received grudging acceptance. In 1899, Munch began relationship with Tulla Larsen. They traveled to Italy together and upon returning, Edvard began another fertile period in his art, which included landscapes and his final painting in "The Frieze of Life" series, "The Dance of Life", 1899. His paintings of the following year included sketchy tavern scenes and a series of bright cityscapes in which he experimented with the pointillist style of Georges Seurat.
In May 1900, Munch travelled to Berlin. He held an exhibit in Dresden before moving on to Florence and a sanatorium in Switzerland. During this year, he exhibited in the Dioramalokalet in Kristiania. Edvard spent most of 1902-1903 in Germany. He exhibited regularly and made connections with collectors and personalities in arts and culture. Munch gradually came to be a recognized and debated artist, who also exhibited in cities such as Vienna and Paris.
In 1903-1904, Munch exhibited in Paris where the coming Fauvists likely saw his works and might have found inspiration in them. Then in 1906, Munch was invited to the Fauves exhibition and displayed his works with theirs. He made short trips to Berlin in 1906. Later that year, Edvard spent time in Bad Kösen, where he painted "Self-portrait with a Bottle of wine", 1906.
Munch spent the summers of 1907 and 1908 in the German seaside resort Warnemünde by the Baltic Sea. He experimented with different techniques, as is evident in scenes of bathing men at the beach. In the autumn of 1908, Edvard’s anxiety, compounded by excessive drinking and brawling, had become acute. He spent the following eight months in Dr. Jacobson’s private clinic. Munch’s stay in hospital stabilized his personality, and after returning to Norway in 1909, his work became more colorful and less pessimistic.
In addition in 1909, when he moved to Kragerø, he signed up for the competition for the decoration of the University Aula, and the first drafts were made in the summer of 1909. Today, the two most well-known pictures that decorate the Aula are - "The Sun" and "History".
After spending the winter and spring in Kragerø, Munch bought the Nedre Ramme property at Hvitsten in November 1910. There he continued working on the Aula decorations. Munch’s first American exhibit was in 1912 in New York. In April 1913, he travelled to Berlin, Frankfurt, Cologne, Paris and London. He exhibited in Stockholm. Edvard painted portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Glaser and their relatives Käthe and Hugo Perls.
In 1916, the decorations for the University Aula were completed. They were the monumental paintings "History", "The Sun" and "Alma Mater". Munch developed landscape paintings that used a similar mode of expression. Also in 1916, he bought the Ekely property at Skøyen. He lived at Ekely for the rest of his life. He exhibited 57 prints at Bourgeois Galleries in New York, and was one of the initiators of the Association of Norwegian Printmakers.
In 1922, Munch worked on monumental projects in the outdoor studios at Ekely, including the series of pictures as "The Late Frieze of Life" and "The Human Mountain". He travelled to Berlin in February 1927, where the largest retrospective Munch exhibit to date was presented in the National Gallery.
Edvard contracted an eye disease in May 1930, and had to rest until August. He took a series of photographic self-portraits. In the 1930s and 1940s, the Nazis labeled Munch’s work "degenerate art" and removed his 82 works from German museums. In 1942, Munch also exhibited his work in Gothenburg, and 34 of his prints were shown at the Brooklyn Museum in New York from December to February. During the last years of his life, Munch made several unflinchingly revealing self-portraits, showing an old man facing death.
Galloping Horse
1912Self-Portrait after Spanish Influenza
1920By the Roulette
1892The Wedding of the Bohemian, Munch Seated on the Far Left
1925Worker and Child
1908Death of Marat I
1907Ashes
1894White Night
1901Self-portrait. Between the clock and the bed
1943Portrait of Inger Munch
1892The Ladies on the Bridge
1901Young woman on the shore
1896August Stindberg
1892Rain
1902Workers on Their Way Home
1915Girls on a Bridge
1901Brothel Scene. Zum sussen Madel
1907The Flower of Pain
1897Portrait of the Painter Jensen Hjell
1885Moonlight on the Shore
1892Alma Mater
1916Tavern in St. Cloud
1890Self-Portrait During Eye Disease II
1930Horse Team
1919The Voice
1893Self-Portrait with Brushes
1904Head of a Dog
1930The Lumberjack
Spring Plowing
Self-Portrait with Burning Cigarette
Melancholy
By the Window
Puberty
Paris Nude
Woman on the Verandah
Golgotha
Summer Night (Inger on the Shore)
Self-Portrait I
Red Creeper
Cupid and Psyche
Berlin Girl
The Village Street
Christmas in the Brothel
The Death Chamber
The Four Sons of Dr. Linde
Self-Portrait in Bergen
Self-portrait. The night wanderer
Jealousy. From the series The Green Room
Girl Kindling a Stove
Night
Red and White
The Murderess
By the Deathbed (Fever)
Four girls in Arsgardstrand
Vampire II
Street in Asgardstrand
Friedrich Nietzsche
Man and Woman I
Harry Graf Kessler
History
Starry night
The Storm
The Artist and His Model
Madonna
Adam and Eve
The Fisherman
Aunt Karen in the Rocking Chair
Ludvig Karsten
Model on the Couch
Self portrait
Man and Woman
Separation
The yellow log
Old Man in Warnemunde
Count Harry Kessler
Meeting
Spring Day on Karl Johan Street
The Sick Child II
Fertility II
Women on the Bridge
Writer Hans Jaeger
Self-Portrait at Ekely
Thorvald Stang
Death in the sickroom
Children in the Street
Anxiety
Self-Portrait (in distress)
The Sun
Self-Portrait in the Garden, Ekely
The Day After
Self-Portrait in Hell
The Lonely Ones
Professor Daniel Jacobson
Ashes II
Morning
Walter Rathenau
At the Coffee Table
Eye in Eye
Vampire
Kiss IV
Bathing Men
Towards the Forest II
Young Man and Prostitute
Trees on the Shore
Awakening Men
Bathing Man
The Wave
The Mystery of a Summer Night
Landscape. Maridalen by Oslo
The Hands
High Summer II
Jens Thiis
Christen Sandberg
Forest
The Murderer
Old Trees
The Lady from the sea
Melancholy
The Girls on the Bridge
Man and Woman II
Women on the Bridge
The sick child
Kiss
Workers on their way home I
Mother and Daughter
The Painter Jacob Bratland
Nude
Self-Portrait with Striped Pullover
Couple on the Shore (from the Reinhardt Frieze)
Four Ages in Life
Lady from the sea
Dance Of Life
Girl Combing Her Hair
Self-Portrait
Self-portrait with bottle of wine
Old Aker Church
The Dead Mother
Girl Yawning
Dagny Juel Przybyszewska
Evening on Karl Johan Street
Girl and Death
Snow Falling in the Lane
Moonlight
Self-Portrait
Model in Front of the Verandah
Albert Kollmann
Despair
Moon Light
Man Bathing
Spring
Sister Inger
Workers in the Snow
Woman in Blue (Frau Barth)
The Three Stages of Woman (Sphinx).
Stanislaw Przybyszewski
The Scream
Jurisprudence
The Haymaker
Summer Night at Aasgaardstrand
The Murderer in the Lane
View over the Rover at St.Cloud
By the Deathbed (Fever) I
Red Virginia Creeper
Jealousy
Self-Portrait with Hand under Cheek
The Women
Red House and Spruces
From Thuringewald
Nude I
Building the Winter Studio. Ekely
Street Lafayette
Edvard Munch was raised as a devout Lutheran. As an adult, however, he abandoned the strongly-held Protestant Christian beliefs that had shaped his childhood. Munch was never again an orthodox member of any religious denomination or formally organized religion, but he remained intensely interested in spirituality and religion. Munch was involved and interested in Spiritualism. He wrote much about religious topics, and his beliefs can be characterized as Pantheistic.
Munch was influenced by Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Georges Seurat and Caspar David Friedrich.
His painting style was characterized by the use of contrasting lines, blocks of darker intense colour, sombre tones, exaggerated form and semi-abstraction, which created an air of mystery.
Quotations:
"Nature is not only all that is visible to the eye... it also includes the inner pictures of the soul."
"The camera will never compete with the brush and palette until such time as photography can be taken to Heaven or Hell."
"What is art? Art grows from joy and sorrow, but mostly from sorrow. It grows from human lives."
"All art, literature, and music must be born in your heart's blood. Art is your heart's blood."
"There is a battle that goes on between men and women. Many people call it love."
"A work of art can only come from the interior of man. Art is the form of the image formed upon the nerves, heart, brain and eye of man."
"Colors live a remarkable life of their own after they have been applied to the canvas."
Munch's drawings, paintings and prints take on the quality of psychological talismans: having originated in his personal experiences, they nonetheless bear the power to express, and perhaps alleviate, any viewer's own emotional or psychological condition.
Quotes from others about the person
Christian Krohg: "He paints, or rather regards, things in a way that is different from that of other artists. He sees only the essential, and that, naturally, is all he paints. For this reason Munch`s pictures are as a rule "not complete", as people are so delighted to discover for themselves. Oh, yes, they are complete. His complete handiwork. Art is complete once the artist has really said everything that was on his mind, and this is precisely the advantage Munch has over painters of the other generation, that he really knows how to show us what he has felt, and what has gripped him, and to this he subordinates everything else."
Munch had relationships with Tulla Larsen.