Grabbing the collective imagination – Munch in Oslo

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Patricia Andrew reviews the catalogue of a show so big it occupies two museums

Edvard Munch 1863–1944 edited by Jon-Ove Steihaug and Mai Britt Guleng

Poor Edvard Munch, the greatest artist Norway has produced. Everyone knows his composition The Scream whereas much of his other work has been neglected.  But perhaps that should be ‘lucky Edvard Munch’, for the ubiquitous presence of this deceptively simple image serves to demonstrate the artist’s genius. He worked on his several Screams over a period of time, and analysis of the paints used (shown on video at the current vast, two-venue Munch exhibition in Olso) demonstrates that he returned to them again and again. 

Few images have grabbed the collective imagination so strongly and persistently as these compositions, and entire books of Scream parodies have now been published. Borrowed mercilessly by cartoonists (the Homer Simpson version is very amusing), this year – the 150th anniversary of the artist’s birth – has already brought a bumper crop, including a particularly fine example that graced the cover of the British news magazine The Week in May, with  David Cameron as the figure in torment.  And in the saleroom, The Screamcontinues to hit the headlines: at Sotheby’s New York a version sold last year for $119.9m.

Norway is commemorating Munch rather more seriously, with publications and events ranging from a set of Munch postage stamps to a major exhibition in Oslo entitled ‘Munch 150’. The show is so large that it has been split chronologically that one half is displayed at the National Museum of Art, the other at the Munch Museum, built in 1963 to commemorate the centenary of the artist’s birth. This real doorstep of a catalogue-cum-book accompanies the show, an encyclopedic production which should serve as a standard reference work on Munch for years to come. Nonetheless, the English translation comes across as rather pedantic at times, and its length and detail make it more suitable for the serious student or the specialist than the general reader. 

Munch is put into historical context, and we see the full range of his oeuvre, its inspiration and originality. Quite early on, he was trying to represent emotions rather than surface appearance, exploring the hidden, darker side of humanity. He concentrated on – indeed, was obsessed by - relationships between men and women, isolation, melancholy and anxiety, exploring them through townscapes and landscapes as well as human figures. Indeed, his attachment to places and landmarks of significance is a sometimes overlooked but key element of his work.

Munch’s work was often controversial, although he worked almost continuously on public art projects from 1904 onwards, and received honours in his native Norway later in life. In the 1930s the Nazis declared him a ‘degenerate artist’ and his work was removed from German museums; by the time the Nazis invaded Norway, much of his work was hidden way. He bequeathed many paintings to city of Oslo, and the collections have been growing ever since.  

The current exhibition features work borrowed from many museums, and from private collections, and the claim that it is a ‘once in a lifetime chance’ to see so many together seems justified. The publication comprises ten essays, which make reference to a great deal of Munch scholarship from recent decades, and there is a catalogue of the works in the show, a bibliography and an index of names.

There were at least 36 Munch publications, many new, on sale in the Nasjonmuseetin Oslo when I visited, and yet others (along with numerous Munch-themed souvenirs from Scream erasers and cufflinks) at the Munch Museum. Will Norway be tired of Munch by the end of this year? Probably not, and both the Norwegians and the rest of the art-historical world may know rather more about their greatest national artist.

Edvard Munch 1863–1944, edited by Jon-Ove Steihaug and Mai Britt Guleng is published by Skira, with the Munch Museet and the Nasjonmuseet, Oslo, 2013. 420 pp., 315 col illus. ISBN 978-88-572-1775-8