EDVARD MUNCH, PORTRAITS at the NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY on Wednesday 4th of June 2025

 EDVARD MUNCH, PORTRAITS at the NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY on Wednesday 4^th of June 2025

 

Self-portrait, Edvard Munch, 1882-83, oil on unprimed canvas

Munch’s early portraits depict his family and close friends.  Munch’s mother died of tuberculosis when he was just 5 and his sister Sophie also died in 1877 when Munch was 14.  These experiences emerge in Munch’s early formative work The Sick Child (1885-86) which formed the basis of his expressionist style.  The proximity of death and the insubstantiality of existence are themes that dominate Munch’s work.  His father, a military doctor in Kristiania (as Oslo was then known) became an emotional recluse after his wife’s death.  Munch creates portraits of his family members, especially distinctive are portraits of his sisters Laura and Inge (oil on paper, 1883) which seem impressionistic and summery and optimistic. 

Hans Jaeger, Edvard Munch, 1889, oil on canvas

Later, Munch began to move among the Kristiania Boheme.  The Boheme consisted of young artists like Munch, the novelist Hans Jager (1854-1910) whose portrait is included in this exhibition (1889) and other artists and intellectuals committed to experiencing and attaining personal freedom which meant for them sexual liberty, the equality of the sexes, and the freedom to question and express oneself as one wished in art and literature.  Jager was eventually gaoled for expressing his beliefs and opinions, an experience that left him broken mentally and physically.

Evening, Edvard Munch, 1888, oil on canvas

Munch ultimately left Kristiania for Berlin where he exhibited his paintings and became involved with the Swedish playwright August Strindberg (1849-1912) in 1892.  They met at a club called The Black Piglet (Zum schwarzen Ferkel) a name invented by Strindberg.  Several of Munch’s portraits, from 1892 and 1893, of Strindberg are included in the exhibition.  Incidentally, Strindberg rejected the works, declaring them to be too literal likenesses, depicting he, so Strindberg conjectured, with slanty eyes.  Another more famous portrait is that of fellow Norwegian Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906).  So many of the themes that Munch dealt with emerge in Ibsen’s work, it’s hard not to be struck by the originality of Munch’s portrait.  Ibsen’s head fills the portrait, yet he seems isolated from the people around him, perhaps insisting on the loneliness and isolated nature of genius.

Thor Lutken, Edvard Munch, 1892, oil on canvas

Munch’s later portraits consist of commissions, but also portraits of patrons and doctors.  The commissions were made by wealthy Jewish industrialists who lived in Germany like Walter Rathenau (1867-1922) and Swede Ernst Thiel (1859-1947, both oil on canvas, 1907).  During WW1 Rathenau organised the German war economy and, after 1918, accepted fulfilment of Germany’s obligations under the terms of the Versailles Treaty.  Inevitably, Rathenau became a figure of hatred to Germany’s far right and he was assassinated in 1922. 

Felix Auerbach, Edvard Munch, 1906

Many of these individuals fervently advocated the writings of Frederich Nietzsche (1844-1900) who Munch also painted, even though the two men never met.  Munch’s portraits of Nietzsche are absent from the exhibition, but a portrait of Nietzsche’s sister Elizabeth Foerster Nietzsche (1846-1935) is included (1906, oil on canvas).  Apparently, Munch talked incessantly during the sitting to drown out Frau Nietzsche’s antisemitic ravings.  She was a fervent antisemite and advocate of her brother’s writings; she was responsible for twisting his works so that they would be more easily adapted into Nazi ideology.

Tete a tete, Edvard Munch, 1885, oil on canvas

One of the doctors who treated Munch after a nervous breakdown in 1907 was Dr Daniel Jacobsen.  His portrait (oil on canvas, 1908) is reminiscent of Hans Holbein’s portrait of Henry VIII and the doctor, detested by Munch, appears to be engulfed in flames.  The background is completed by Munch’s favourite colour, yellow.  The work is also an apparent homage to Vincent Van Gogh, an artist Munch greatly admired.  Dr Jacobsen, however, was unimpressed.

Dr Daniel Jacobsen, Edvard Munch, 1908, oil on canvas

Munch returned to Norway in 1909 when the country became independent of Sweden.  Munch mainly resided in Ekely, near Kristiania, until his death in 1944.  During this time, he completed portraits of important supporters like the writer Jappe Nilsen, social reformer Christian Gerloff and physician Kristian Schreiner.  He regarded these friends as “the Guardians” of his life’s work and reputation.  Munch also painted the servants and models he employed.

Jappe Nilssen, Edvard Munch, 1909, oil on canvas

Munch’s work was becoming more public and accessible, in contrast to the angst which was redolent of his early work.  He became commercially minded and accepted commissions from wealthy patrons like Torvald Stang (oil on canvas, 1910-11) who had benefitted from the booming shipping trade.  Interestingly, the only black African Munch painted was Sultan Abdul Karem (oil on canvas, 1911).  Karem travelled to Norway as part of the Hagenbeck circus and was employed by Munch as a model and servant. 

Model with a green scarf (Sultan Abdul Karim), Edvard Munch

Munch’s work was successively banned and suppressed as the tide of European politics turned to the far right and the National Socialist movement emerged in Germany. 

Seated model on the couch, Birgit Prestoe, Edvard Munch, 1924, oil on canvas

Although there have been many recent exhibitions of Munch’s work in London, Edvard Munch Portraits seems to add yet another dimension to our understanding of the artist.  Perhaps the reason why many of the more controversial aspects of the artist’s life were omitted is because of their inclusion in the exhibition catalogue or possibly because the curators felt that audiences would be sufficiently knowledgeable about the artist’s life to safely omit them.  Edvard Munch Portraits is a fine exhibition which will enhance your understanding of this difficult artist.

The Brooch, Eva Mudocci, Edvard Munch, 1902, lithograph

Paul Murphy, National Portrait Gallery, June 2025

Stanislaw Przybyszewski, Edvard Munch, 1895, lithograph