Edvard Munch

Who is Edvard Munch?

Edvard Munch was born in Løten, Norway, and grew up in Christiania (now Oslo) amid illness and family loss that deeply shaped his art. He became a pioneer of Expressionism, using color, distorted form and psychological intensity to depict emotion rather than surface appearance. His most famous work, The Scream, has become one of the most recognizable images in world art, an icon of modern anxiety. Munch conceived many of his paintings as part of a larger cycle he called The Frieze of Life, exploring themes of love, jealousy, sickness and death. He worked extensively in printmaking, producing influential woodcuts and lithographs. After a breakdown in 1908 he returned to Norway, and upon his death he bequeathed a vast body of work to the city of Oslo, now housed in the Munch Museum.

Sources: Edvard Munch, The Scream (Skrik), 1893 · Edvard Munch, Madonna, 1894–1895 · Edvard Munch, The Frieze of Life series, 1890s–1900s