EMDEN, GERMANY.- Through January 16, 2005, German audiences will have a rare opportunity to experience the quality and depth of one of the most prolific and poetic artists of the twentieth century. "Edvard Munch – Pictures from Norway" organized by the Kunsthalle in Emden, will feature one the largest group of paintings ever loaned by the Munch-Museet in Oslo, Norway, to a German institution. The exhibition, which includes 63 works Munch painted in Norway after Munch had established his career in France and Germany, will be on view at the Kunsthalle in Emden from October 2, 2004 to January 16, 2005.
The Kunsthalle in Emden is the sole venue for "Edvard Munch – Pictures from Norway." "While people know and admire the picture The Scream, there are many other profoundly moving works by this renowned artist," said Dr. Achim Sommer the museum’s Managing Curator. "This exhibition is part of our ongoing commitment to collaborate with esteemed international cultural institutions to make a wider range of great art accessible to our public".
The exhibition is curated by Managing Director Dr. Achim Sommer and Senior Curator Dr. Nils Ohlsen. Their essays for the exhibition catalogue will be the first extensive considerations of Munch’s later paintings published in German.
"Edvard Munch – Bilder aus Norwegen" is the first exhibition in Germany to be wholly comprised of paintings from Munch’s "Ekely" period, named for his Norwegian estate. This important presentation will encompass paintings that date from the first decades of the twentieth century to Munch’s death in 1944, including significant self-portraits and landscapes that provide a comprehensive view of Munch’s work as a mature artist.
"While Munch revisits some of his earlier themes, there is a different sensibility in his later paintings," says Nils Ohlsen "The dramatic, emotional tenor that marked his earlier work is subdued, allowing a lush palette of sensuous color to permeate these canvases. Audiences will be especially surprised by Munch’s landscapes; he was an gifted colorist, capturing the unusual way that northern light plays upon the colors in the Norwegian landscape," adds Sommer.
"Edvard Munch – Pictures from Norway " will reflect the rich holdings of the Munch-Museet in Oslo. The institution was formed around Munch’s personal holdings at the time of his death and currently houses 1,100 paintings, 18,000 prints, 4,500 watercolors and drawings and six sculptures, all of which the artist willed to the City of Oslo.
About Edvard Munch - Edvard Munch was born in 1863. In his early twenties, he lived in Paris and Berlin where he painted and gained admiration as an artist. He is best known for his work from the mid-1880s through the end of the nineteenth century, a style which was influenced by the Post-Impressionists, but largely based on his own form of Symbolism. At the age of 40, suffering from exhaustion and alcoholism, Munch had a nervous breakdown and admitted himself to a clinic in Copenhagen. After an eight-month stay, he returned to Norway, where he lived and worked until his death at the age of 81.
In Norway, which was more conservative than the cosmopolitan cities where he had been living, Munch turned to more traditional subjects, such as the garden surrounding his home in Apple Tree in the Garden (1932-42) or models in his studio in The Artist and his Model II (1919-1921). Taming his earlier emotionally-fraught themes, he depicted images of his surroundings: motifs from nature, animals, workers and self-portraits, such as Jealousy in the Garden (1916-1920) and Sleepless Night (1919-1920).
"Edvard Munch – Pictures from Norway" captures the depth and quality of Munch’s work after 1916 when he purchased an estate near Oslo, named Ekely, which became his last residence and a primary subject of his art for the next 27 years. These "Ekely" period paintings are not as well known as his earlier works, such as the artist’s most celebrated painting, The Scream (1893), which Munch painted at age 30. The Scream reflects Munch’s familial experiences with illness and death and the emotional toll they took on the artist’s life. For the next 50 years of his career, Munch would continue to depict these themes and other powerful scenes of love and anxiety, but these topics were treated less overtly in his later paintings. In the late works his use of color becomes richer and more pronounced, filling his compositions with expanded space and light, and giving his work an artistic maturity that continues to inspire and amaze.
