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Few other modern artists are better known and yet less understood than Norwegian painter Edvard Munch (1863-1944). This exhibition

examines the artist’s work from the 20th century, including sixty paintings, many from the Munch Museum in Oslo, with a rare showing

of his work in film and photography.

Munch is often seen as a 19th-century Symbolist painter but this exhibition shows how he engaged with modernity and was inspired by

the everyday life outside of his studio such as street scenes and incidents reported in the media - includingThe House is Burning

1925-7, a sensational view of a real life event with people fleeing the scene of a burning building.

The show also examines how Munch often repeated a single motif over a long period of time in order to re-work it, as can be seen in

the different versions of his most celebrated works, such as The Sick Child 1885-1927 and Girls on the Bridge 1902-27.

Munch’s use of prominent foregrounds and strong diagonals reference the technological developments in cinema and photography at

the time. Creating the illusion of figures moving towards the spectator, this visual trick can be seen in many of Munch’s most innovative

works such as Workers on their Way Home1913-14. He was also keenly aware of the visual effects brought on by the introduction of

electric lighting on theatre stages and used this to create striking effect in works such as The Artist and his Model 1919-21.

Like other painters such as Bonnard, Munch adopted photography in the early years of the 20th century and largely focused on self-

portraits, which he obsessively repeated. In the 1930s he developed an eye disease and made poignant works which charted the

effects of his degenerating sight. So you think you know Edvard Munch? Think again.

Edvard Munch: The Modern Eye is a major exhibition which will radically reassess the work of Norwegian painter Edvard Munch (1863-

1944). It will propose a ground breaking dialogue between the artist’s paintings and drawings made in the first half of the 20th century

and his often overlooked interest in the rise of other media during that time, including photography, film and the re-birth of stage

production.

Few other modern artists are better known and yet less understood than Munch. He is often presented primarily as a 19th century

painter, a Symbolist or a pre-Expressionist, but this exhibition will aim to show instead how he emphatically engaged with 20th century

concerns that were thoroughly representative of the modernity of the age. It will feature around sixty carefully-selected paintings and fifty

photographs, alongside his lesser-known filmic work. These will reveal Munch’s interest in current affairs and how his paintings were

inspired by scenes he had observed in the street or incidents reported in the press or on the radio. Far from confining himself to the

studio, he frequently worked outdoors to capture scenes of everyday life.

Organised in close cooperation with the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Munch Museet in Oslo, the show will also examine how

Munch often reworked and repeated a single motif. It will gather together numerous versions of his most celebrated works, such as

The Sick Child 1885-1927 and Puberty 1886-1916, from collections including the Gothenberg Konstmuseum and the

Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo. Like other painters such as Bonnard and Vuillard, Munch adopted photography in the early years of the 20th

century and his photographic activities were largely focused on self-portraiture, which he obsessively restaged and reworked. Self-

portraits also lay at the heart of Munch’s painted oeuvre. In the 1930s he developed an eye disease and made poignant works which

charted the effects of his degenerating sight. His last work, which will be on display, was one such self-portrait.

The use of prominent foregrounds and strong diagonals are among the formal qualities which particularly distinguish Munch’s work.

These clearly reference the advancing technological developments in cinema and photography of the era. Creating the illusion of

actors moving towards the spectator, as if looming out from a cinema screen, this pictorial device can be seen in many of Munch’s

most innovative works such as On the Operating Table 1902-03 and The Yellow Log1912 from the Munch Museet, Oslo. Munch was

also keenly aware of the visual effects brought on by the introduction of electric lighting on theatre stages, and used this to create

ethereal drama in, for example, his 1907 Green Room series. The theme of the duality of presence and erasure is further explored

elsewhere in his work, where matter takes on an ephemeral or ghostlike appearance in key works such as The Sun 1913-15 and

Starry Night

1922-24.