Author(s): Jon-Ove Steihaug

Art

This is a beautifully illustrated catalogue on the most comprehensive and ambitious full-scale retrospective of Munchs artistic oeuvre ever. In conjunction with the 150th anniversary of the birth of Edvard Munch (1863-1944) in 2013, a once in a lifetime exhibition is produced by the Munch Museum and the National Museum of Art, Architecture, and Design in Oslo. Munch 150 is the most comprehensive and ambitious full-scale retrospective of Munchs artistic oeuvre ever. It includes both an exceptional number of highlights, as well as some works that are less known, and is based on extensive loans from public and private collections. The exhibition and its catalogue encompass the entire development of Munchs art from the 1880s to his death in 1944; the primary focus will be on Munchs paintings, prints, drawings, and photographs. They cover Munchs oeuvre in an overarching perspective: Self-presentation and self-portraiture; Places and perception; Visual rhetoric; The Frieze of Life as a lifelong project; Munch and public life; Narration and abstraction; Figure and representation; The staging of gender; and The construction of Munch after 1944.
The catalogue also reflects Munch scholarship from recent decades revitalizing the artists importance, and include a timeline, a biography, and an index of names and places.