Edvard Munch

**Edvard Munch** (12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian painter and print-maker. He was born in Adalsbruk. He was an expressionist who painted 1789 known paintings. He is well known for his treatment of emotion such as fear. His way of seeing things had a large influence on the expressionism of the 20th century. People saw this treatment as being intense.

During his life, he had success as a painter: He became famous outside Norway, and his paintings got high prices. The National Gallery (Norway) used much money to buy paintings by Munch. He painted a large murals in the _aula_ (main room) of Norway's (then) only university.

## Early life and education

He had four brothers and sisters. He had followed his mother and sister by being the best artists in their family. While Edvard was still young, his mother and one of his sisters died. But it was when he was thirteen that he really came to like art. The first paintings he did were simple objects like medicine bottles and other objects. Later on, he drew oil paintings.

He went to technical college in 1879 where he learnt how to draw paintings with perspective. However, in 1880, the following year he left the school to become a painter.

He went to the Royal School of Art and Design. This is where he learnt sculpturing and naturalistic painting. This is where he drew his first important portrait of himself and his father.

## Health and death

Munch was ill very often. Many scientists think that he suffered from bipolar disorder (manic depression). He died at his house in Oslo.

## Paintings

_The Scream_ (1893; originally called _Despair_). This is Munch's best-known painting, and is one of the best known images in the world. It is one of the pieces in a series titled _The Frieze of Life_. In the series Munch explored the themes of life, love, fear, death and melancholy.

_The Frieze of Life_ themes  come back throughout Munch's work. These themes can be seen in paintings such as _The Sick Child_ (1886, portrait of his deceased sister Sophie), (1893–1894), _Ashes_ (1894), and _The Bridge_. The last-named shows limp figures. Those figures have faces with no features, or they have no faces at all. Threatening shapes of heavy trees and houses are above the figures. Munch portrayed women either as frail, innocent sufferers or as lurid, life-devouring vampires. Munch analysts say this reflects his sexual anxieties.

- 1885-86: _The Sick Child_
- 1892: _Evening on Karl Johan_
- 1893: _The Scream_
- 1894: _Ashes_
- 1894–1895: _Madonna_
- 1895: _Puberty_
- 1895: _Self-Portrait with Burning Cigarette_
- 1895: _Death in the Sickroom_
- 1899–1900: _The Dance of Life_
- 1899–1900: _The Dead Mother_
- 1903: _Village in Moonlight_
- 1940–1942: _Self Portrait: Between Clock and Bed_

### Paintings by year

|Image|Name|Year|Information|Where the painting is (now)||
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
||_Telthusbakken with Gamle Aker Church_|1880|The hill, _Telthusbakken_ ('tent-house hill') is in Oslo|It is not known where the painting is (as of the 2020s).||
||_Øvre Foss_|1880|The place is in Oslo, Norway.|Munch Museum, Oslo, Norway||
||_Small Lake with Boat_|1880||In a museum in Oslo||
||_Boat with Three Boys_|c. 1886||In a museum in Oslo||
||_Man on the Veranda_|1886||Kreeger Museum, Washingtion, DC. USA||
||_From Hisøya near Arendal_|1886||Unknown||
||_	Woman and Children in Arendal_|1886||Private collection||
||_Self-portrait_|c. 1888||In a museum in Oslo||
||_Aasta Carlsen_|1888–89|She was a painter. Other pictures of her, and her other name|In a museum in Oslo||
||_Spring_|1889||National Museum, Oslo||
||_Summer Night. Inger on the Beach_|1889|It is a portrait of Munch's youngest sister Inger.|Kode Bergen (Norway)||
||_Night in Saint-Cloud_|1890||National Museum, Oslo||
||_In the Bar_|1890||Städtische Galerie im Städelschen Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt am Main||
||_In the Café_|1890||In a museum in Oslo||
||_Woman in Evening Landscape_|1890||In a museum in Oslo||
||_Evening. Melancholy_|1891||In a museum in Oslo||
||_The Storm_|1893|In the painting, the trees [bend or] are diagonal; Another sign of the storm, is the way that the sky is shown.||Museum of Modern Art, New York City; The painting is being shown (as of the summer of 2024) in Munch Musem (Oslo), at an exhibition that ends in August.|
||_Puberty_|1894–95||National Museum, Oslo||
||_Anxiety_|1894|In a museum in Oslo|||
||_Separation_|1896||In a museum in Oslo||
||_Summer Night. The Voice_|1896||In a museum in Oslo||
||_Felix Auerbach_|1906|Other pictures of Auerbach), a physicist|Unknown||
||_Self-Portrait against Red Background_|1906||In a museum in Oslo||
||_Friedrich Nietzsche_|1906|Only in a few cases did Munch, make portraits from photographs (instead of _live models_). Munch never met Friedrich Nietzsche. Photographs were used, while Munch made painting of Nietzsche. The painting was ordered by (and paid for) by Ernest Thiel.|Thiel Gallery (in Djurgården), Stockholm, Sweden||
||_Friedrich Nietzsche_|1906||In a museum in Oslo||
||_Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche_|1906|She was the younger sister of Friedrich Nietzsche|In a museum in Oslo||
||_Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche_|1906||Thiel Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden||
||_Albert Kollmann_|1906|Other pictures of Kollmann|In a museum in Oslo||
||_Desire_|1906–07||In a museum in Oslo||
||_Ernest Thiel_|1907|Ernest Thiel built the house (1905) where the Thiel Gallery is (as of the 2020s). Other pictures of Thiel|Thiel Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden||
||_The Harbour in Lübeck_|1907|Kunsthaus Zürich, Switzerland|||
||_The Coast near Lübeck_|1907|National Gallery in Prague, Czech Republic|||
||_Rodin's "Le Penseur" in Dr. Linde's Garden_|1907|Pictures of art collector Max Linde (or Dr. Linde from Germany)|Musée Rodin, Paris, France||
||_Self-Portrait in Profile_|1907||In a museum in Oslo||
||_Female Portrait_|1907||In a museum in Oslo||
||_Portrait of an Old Man_|1907||In a museum in Oslo||
||_Old Man in Warnemünde_|1907||In a museum in Oslo||
||_Street in Warnemünde_|1907||In a museum in Oslo||
||_Women and Children in Warnemünde_|1907||In a museum in Oslo||
||_The Drowned Boy_|1907–08||In a museum in Oslo||
||_Worker and Child_|1907||In a museum in Oslo||
||_Mason and Mechanic_|1907–08||In a museum in Oslo||
||_Bathing Men_|1907||In a museum in Oslo||
||_Bathing Men_|1907||In a museum in Oslo||
||_Bathing Men_|1907–08||Ateneum, Helsinki, Finland||
||_The Death of Marat_|1907|Munch Museum, Oslo, Norway|||
||_The Death of Marat_|1907|Munch Museum, Oslo, Norway|||
||_Cupid and Psyche_|1907|Munch Museum, Oslo, Norway|||
||_Consolation_|1907|Munch Museum, Oslo, Norway|||
||_Woman with Children_|1907|Munch Museum, Oslo, Norway|||
||_Cupido_|1907|Munch Museum, Oslo, Norway|||
||_Weeping Woman_|1907|Munch Museum, Oslo, Norway|||
||_Weeping Woman_|1907|Munch Museum, Oslo, Norway|||
||_Weeping Woman_|1907–09|The Art Museums in Bergen, Norway. Bergen Art Museum (Stenersen's collection)|||
||_Weeping Woman_|1907|Munch Museum, Oslo, Norway|||
||_Weeping Woman_|1907–09|Munch Museum, Oslo, Norway|||
||_Olga and Rosa Meissner_|1907|Kode Bergen (Norway)|||
||_Olga and Rosa Meissner_|1907|In a museum in Oslo|||
||_Zum Süssen Mädel_|1907|In a museum in Oslo|||
||_Jealousy_|c. 1907|In a museum in Oslo|||
||_The Sick Child_|1907|Tate Modern, London|||
||_The Sun_|1910–11|In a museum in Oslo.|||
||_Woman with Poppies_|1918–1919||In a museum in Oslo.||

## Other websites

- Biography from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
- The Munch Museum
- Gallery Munch - Løten
- Munch at artcyclopedia
- Catalogue raisonné of Edvard Munch's paintings.
- Edvard Munch
- Interpol's page  about the stolen works of art
Munch and bipolar disorder:
- Rothenberg A. Bipolar illness, creativity, and treatment. _Psychiatr Q._ 2001 Summer;72(2):131-47.
- Edvard Munch in Germany