Edvard Munch’s life and career coincided with a period of significant changes in the way art portrayed the world. During the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th, many artists went in search of different ways of representing both the visible world and the inner life.
This exhibition shows some of the important currents in art which were underway during Munch’s time as an artist, and which he also took part in. Images became increasingly abstract, and artists experimented with form and colour. Modern urban life produced feelings of disconnection and disorientation, as well as dreams of nature and a golden age. To explore these unfamiliar psychological states, artists developed distinctive individual expressions and styles.
Covering a period from around 1880 to 1950, this exhibition displays a selection of tendencies in European art, and locates Munch’s work within this story. Visitors will see various ways in which artists expanded their expressive range. Painters experimented with ‘unnatural’ colours, simplified forms and lines, woodcuts, worked with unconventional materials, and treated the canvas as a decorative two-dimensional surface.
This permanent exhibition has been created in collaboration with The Savings Bank Foundation DNB, Canica Art Collection and the Vigeland Museum, who have all helped to strengthen MUNCH’s collection through long-term deposits of artworks.
Edvard Munch Horizons includes examples of work by European artists such as Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Alexej von Jawlensky, Emil Nolde, Oscar Kokoschka, Else Alfelt, Asger Jorn, Gabriele Münter, Erich Heckel and Raoul Dufy; and Norwegian artists including Edvard Munch, Gustav Vigeland, Henrik Sørensen, Ludvig Karsten, Håkon Bjærke, Erik Harry Johannessen, Olaf Lange, Bjarne Engebret, Axel Revold, Per Krohg, Rolf Nesch, Sigurd Winge, Olav Strømme, Reidar Aulie, Arne Ekeland, Jakob Weidemann, Kai Fjell andTeddy Røwde.
