Munch by Himself
dal 18/2/2005 al 15/5/2005
Segnalato da
18/2/2005
Munch by Himself
Moderna Museet, Stockholm
The self-portraits run like a red thread through Munch's oeuvre. Hardly any other artist has portrayed himself so ruthlessly and exposed himself as Munch does in his self-portraits that centre on issues of identity, exploring his role as artist and human being in society and focusing on his relationship to life, love and death.
Artist's self-portraits
Moderna Museet in Stockholm will open a unique exhibition featuring the Norwegian artist's self-portraits. Never before have so many of Munch's self-portraits been brought together in one show.
The self-portraits run like a red thread through Edvard Munch's oeuvre. Hardly any other artist has portrayed himself so ruthlessly and exposed himself as Munch does in his self-portraits that centre on issues of identity, exploring his role as artist and human being in society and focusing on his relationship to life, love and death.
The self-portraits reflect Munch's artistic development, from his first tentative steps from radical naturalism to the expressionistic symbolism of the 1890s. They chronicle the successive stages of his life, from youth to old age. Over the years, Munch discovered intense metaphors and pictorial formulas for his inner experiences. This, coupled with his free approach to colour, made him a trailblazer of expressionism. At the turn of the century, Munch's palette grew lighter, and a powerful, richly nuanced, symphonic style began to emerge.
The exhibition will feature paintings, graphic works and drawings, along with sketches and studies from all phases of Munch's oeuvre. Moreover, Moderna Museet will show several of his symbolist paintings that especially highlight his artist role, such as The Blossom of Pain, and Golgatha. Despair, his study for The Scream, will also be shown.
The works in the exhibition date from the 1880s to 1944, the year Munch died. The emphasis, however, is on works from the 1900s.
The exhibition will be on in Stockholm from 19 February until 15 May. It was produced by Moderna Museet and will move on to the Munch Museum in Oslo and the Royal Academy of Arts in London in the summer and autumn of 2005 respectively. The curator is Moderna Museet's Iris Müller-Westermann, who wrote her doctor's thesis on Munch's self-portraits.
"Edvard Munch's works seem to have an everlasting relevance, and it is high time that we show the astonishing visual autobiography of this great sceptic," says Iris Müller-Westermann.
A richly illustrated catalogue will be published for the exhibition.
Image: Edvard Munch - Salomeparafras - 1894-98 © Edvard Munch/BUS 2004 - Munch-museet, Oslo
Moderna Museet - Island of Skeppsholmen - Stockholm