The Fabulous Munch Museum In Oslo, Norway ~ Impresses The AKN Editor On His Tour

Written by Gustavo Bennett Saturday, 04 December 2010 22:18

When Edvard Munch died in January 1944, it transpired that he had unconditionally bequeathed all his remaining works to the City of Oslo. Edvard Munch's art is the most significant Norwegian contribution to the history of art, and he is the only Norwegian artist who has exercised a decisive influence on European art trends, above all as a pioneer of Expressionism in Germany and the Nordic countries. The Munch Museum opened in 1963 and was purpose-built to house this unique collection of approximately 1,100 paintings, 4.500 drawings and 18,000 prints. Major works will always be on display in the museum. The selections from the vast collection is changed regularly. The museum structure was designed by the architects Einar Myklebust and Gunnar Fougner (1911-1995). Myklebust also played an important role in the expansion and renovation of the museum in 1994 for the 50th anniversary of Munch's death. This site has also been the location of filming for an Olsenbanden-movie comedies from 1984. In 1994, expansion and rehabilitation of the museum was financed by the Japanese company Idemitsu Kosan Ltd. The museum was partly rebuilt in 2005 to upgrade security and modern visitor facilities. The City of Oslo promoted an architectural competition for a new Munch Museum in the area of Bjorvika, a new urban development were the Oslo Opera House is also located. The new museum will be completed in 2013 by the Spanish studio Herreros Arquitectos. The museum's programme also comprises film screenings, audio-guides, concerts, docent guided tours and lectures. The museum has a shop with miscellaneous reproductions of Munch’s artwork, and illustrated catalogues galore. The museum's library houses extensive literature on Edvard Munch and other artists. Website:_ www.munch.museum.no/

The Norwegian artist Edvard Munch is regarded as a pioneer in the Expressionist movement in modern painting. At an early stage Munch was recognized in Germany and central Europe as one of the creators of a new epoch. His star is still on the ascendant in the other European countries, and in the rest of the world. Munch’s art from the 1890s is the most well known, but his later work is steadily attracting greater attention, and it appears to inspire present-day artists in particular. Scholars from a variety of disciplines have explored the meanings of Munch's imagery, his sources in Symbolist art and his legacy for German Expressionism in the context of contemporaneous developments in psychology, literature, and philosophy. Edvard Munch is a unique figure in the history of modern art: he was the first Scandinavian visual artist to earn an international reputation in the explosion of creativity in the late 19th and early 20th century known as the "Scandinavian Renaissance." His haunting painting The Scream (1893) has become an iconic image of anxiety in the modern world and has made him one of the most recognized artists in the world. Yet there is much more to Munch's art than this single melodramatic note. He was a highly productive artist who worked for more than six decades, becoming a major portraitist and landscape artist, as well as perhaps the most searching explorer of human passions, including universal themes of love, death and spiritual seeking. Artistic success was accompanied by personal conflicts. Alcohol had become a problem, and Munch was emotionally unstable for many years. Before Munch died in January 1944, he had willed his large collection of pictures and un-catalogued biographical and literary notes to the City of Oslo. Currently an exhibition titled “Nudes”. of Munch’s paintings, prints and drawings is on view through 9 January, 2011. This special exhibition will concentrate on Munch's nudes in his paintings, graphic prints and drawings from the turn of the century to the 1920s. As early as 1895 Munch stated that "woman is a beautiful creature; I think I will just paint women". He produced relatively few nudes before the end of the century, but they became one of the artist's favorite motifs from about 1910 and well into the 1920s.