Edvard Munch

Edvard Munch is a Norwegian Expressionist painter and printmaker, central figure of modern art whose intensely psychological work explores the universal themes of existential anguish, love, death and alienation. Traumatized by the premature death of his mother and sister during his childhood, he develops a profoundly subjective visual language characterized by violent colors, expressive undulating lines and distorted compositions that translate interior emotional states rather than objective reality. His iconic masterpiece The Scream (1893) becomes the universal emblem of modern anxiety, embodying existential malaise of man facing the absurdity of the human condition. Creating multiple versions of his obsessional compositions - The Madonna, Vampire, Anxiety - in a quest for personal catharsis he calls his Frieze of Life, he radically influences German Expressionism and paves the way for psychological exploration in art. Living reclusive the last decades of his life, he bequeaths to the city of Oslo the entirety of his monumental work, making him a national treasure and an essential reference of 20th century art.