Biographie

1863–1944

Born in 1863 in Nor­way, Edvard Munch, first vis­it­ed Paris in 1885. Hav­ing stud­ied paint­ing in his home coun­try, the Parisian art scene with its rad­i­cal Post-Impres­sion­ism move­ments proved a for­ma­tive expe­ri­ence which cul­mi­nat­ed in his 1886 paint­ing enti­tled ‘The Sick Child’. Depict­ing the impend­ing death of his fif­teen-year old elder sis­ter, Munch com­mu­ni­cat­ed what was felt by the soul instead of what was seen by the eye, a style which became known as Expres­sion­ism. Munch’s ear­ly life expe­ri­ence of pain and death turned his inter­est towards Sym­bol­ism for sub­ject matter.
Munch returned to Paris for a two-year schol­ar­ship in 1889 and exhib­it­ed his 1884 paint­ing ‘Morn­ing’ at the Nor­we­gian Pavil­ion of the Uni­ver­sal Exhi­bi­tion. In Paris Munch tried the Pointil­lism tech­nique as well as Syn­thetism devel­oped by Paul Gau­guin and the school of Pont-Aven. The sim­pli­fi­ca­tion and styl­i­sa­tion of form to express sub­jects of Sym­bol­ism led him to express his father’s recent death in his paint­ing enti­tled ‘The Night’.

Upon his return to Nor­way, Munch exhib­it­ed a series of paint­ings in 1892, which result­ed in an invi­ta­tion to exhib­it in Berlin at the Union of Berlin Artists Novem­ber show. The scan­dal and pub­lic out­rage the exhi­bi­tion caused, brought Munch instant fame. Munch set­tled in Berlin where he fre­quent­ed the Scan­di­na­vian intel­lec­tu­al elite and indulged in a bohemi­an lifestyle.

In 1893, he exhib­it­ed six can­vass­es explor­ing the strug­gle between man and woman, enti­tled ‘Study for a Series: Love’. It was the gen­e­sis of a larg­er cycle called ‘The Frieze of Life’ deal­ing with love, ill­ness and death.  Well-known works such as ‘The Scream’, ‘Vam­pire’, ‘Angst’ and ‘Melan­choly’ belong to this group. All these paint­ings have their par­al­lels in prints and draw­ings and lived pro­longed lives through suc­ces­sive rep­e­ti­tions and reworkings.
The crit­ics dubbed his work as ‘Psy­chic Real­ism’. Munch’s Syn­thetism, which shows the influ­ence of the Nabis, became his way of express­ing his own psy­che and sub­jects sourced in his own life experiences.

In 1896, Munch returned to Paris, where he gave up paint­ing to ded­i­cate time to engrav­ing and lith­o­g­ra­phy. In 1898, Munch returned to Nor­way, before under­tak­ing a long trip through Europe in 1899. At the begin­ning of the 20th cen­tu­ry, Munch pro­duced a body of large works in a more dec­o­ra­tive style, influ­enced by the Ger­man equiv­a­lent of ‘Art Nou­veau’, known as ‘Jugend­stil’. Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly his paint­ings showed the influ­ence of the Nabis in gen­er­al, and of Mau­rice Denis in par­tic­u­lar. In 1902, Munch final­ly showed his com­plet­ed ‘Frieze of Life’ in Berlin.

Munch spent the first decade of the new cen­tu­ry mov­ing rest­less­ly between Bel­gium, The Nether­lands, Ger­many and Den­mark. A long-term suf­fer­er from alco­holism and bouts of depres­sion, Munch was on the verge of a total men­tal break­down in 1908. He received treat­ment from the emi­nent Dan­ish psy­chi­a­trist Dr. Daniel Jacob­son, whose famous por­trait he paint­ed. Munch returned to Nor­way in 1909, and final­ly set­tled for a qui­eter life in the out­skirts of Oslo in 1916.

Munch con­tin­ued paint­ing var­i­ous sub­jects and became increas­ing­ly inter­est­ed in pho­tog­ra­phy and cin­e­ma, even pro­duc­ing exper­i­men­tal films.
Munch died of pneu­mo­nia aged eighty in his home in Nor­way in 1944. He left behind a mon­u­men­tal oeu­vre includ­ing paint­ings, draw­ings, water­colours, prints, writ­ings, pho­tographs and cin­e­mat­ic films. In 1963, the city of Oslo inau­gu­rat­ed the Munch Museum.