Edvard Munch: 1863-1944

Edvard Munch: 1863-1944 by Steihaug, Jon-Ove. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780847841783.

This beautifully illustrated comprehensive book is the definitive 150th anniversary volume. On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Edvard Munch (1863–1944) in 2013, a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition is being organized by the Munch Museum and the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo. This major new book is the most comprehensive and ambitious full-scale retrospective of Munch’s artistic oeuvre ever presented. It includes an exceptional number of renowned masterpieces as well as many lesser-known works from public and private collections worldwide. With some 350 illustrations, the volume beautifully illustrates the entire development of Munch’s art from the 1880s to his death in 1944, including paintings, prints, and drawings. Texts by important scholars cover various aspects of the artist’s work: self-presentation and self-portraiture, places and perception, visual rhetoric, The Frieze of Life series as a lifelong project, Munch and public life, narration and abstraction, figure and representation, and the staging of gender. With texts reflecting the most recent Munch scholarship as well as a timeline, a biography, and an index of names and places, this comprehensive book provides a new understanding of Munch’s groundbreaking contribution to modernist painting. Exhibition Schedule: National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo, and Munch Museum, Oslo: June 2–October 13, 2013