Edvard Munch was a Norwegian painter and graphic artist of the symbolist/expressionist schools. He was a member of "Die Bruecke" (The Bridge), a group of expressionist painters centered in Dresden, Germany.
His best-known painting is "The Scream," painted in1893, and also done as a drawing and as a lithograph (1895). This image has been reproduced widely in posters and prints. The Munch Museet in Oslo, Norway, owns "The Scream" and a large collection of other Munch paintings and prints. A number of museums in the United States and in many other countries also have Munch works.
Munch was often ill as a child so his activities were largely confined to the home. The subjects of his early drawings were often home interiors and adventure and history motifs from the literature his father read to the children. His parents were very religious and maintained a middle class standard of living. At 14 he began studies of technical drawing at Kristiania Technical College and later studied life drawing at the Royal School of Design in Kristiania (now Oslo).
After living in a studio in Kristiania with a group of young artists, and traveling abroad to exhibit at the World's Fair in Antwerp in 1885, he attended the "Salon" in Paris in April 1885. The next year, at the Artists' Carnival of 1886 he met Hans Jaeger, the leader of the 'Kristiania Bohemia' group, and became part of Jaeger's circle of artists. Under Jaeger's influence, Munch began to write about 'spiritual experiences' from his childhood and youth, particularly memories related to love and death. These themes later dominated his pictures in a series called "The Frieze of Life."
In 1889, Munch bought a house in the town of Asgardstrand on the Kristiania fjord in Norway where he spent summers for the following 20 years. This coastal area forms the background for many of his works.
He lived in Berlin, Germany from 1892-1895, socializing with literary figures and philosophers, and created a series of pictures, "Love," with themes of love, angst and death, to be part of his "Frieze of Life". He also began creating etchings and lithographs during this period. After a period 1896-1902 when he lived exclusively in Norway, he exhibited the finished "Frieze of Life" at the Berlin Secession exhibition (1907), which guaranteed him professional artistic recognition and financial success. Between approximately 1902-1907 he became the central figure in the group of German artists known as "Die Bruecke", which was the origin of the modern German expressionist movement.
Munch settled in Ekely in Skoyen, west of Kristiania, in 1916, where he lived for the rest of his life, though continuing to exhibit works throughout Europe. He died of pneumonia in January 1944.
Web Sites
Life and Works: Images:- The Munch Museet in Oslo, Norway
- The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
- The Museum of Modern Art, New York City, New York
Catalog
Search the library's catalog for Edvard Munch.
Databases
Enter Edvard Munch in these databases:
- Current Biography
- eLibrary
- Gale
- Grolier
Biography Resource Center
Virtual Reference Library