Edvard Munch Portraits
06/03/2025
Hardback
£35
By Alison Smith (Editor) and Knut Ljøgodt (Contributor)
Edvard Munch Portraits is a new publication from the National Portrait Gallery that offers a rare and insightful look into the portraiture of one of the most influential artists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This comprehensive exhibition catalogue brings together 60 of Munch's most significant portraits, providing an unparalleled exploration of his creative evolution, personal relationships, and the dramatic shifts in the cultural landscape that shaped his art.
Although Edvard Munch is often best known for his iconic work The Scream, his portraits are a powerful yet often underexplored aspect of his legacy. Throughout his life, Munch produced a vast array of portraits of friends, models, patrons, and especially himself, capturing the nuances of human emotion and psychological depth. From early sketches to later, more mature pieces, these portraits reveal Munch's mastery of diverse media, including painting, drawing, and printmaking.
Evening, Edvard Munch, 1888. Oil on canvas. Photo © Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza; The Brooch. Eva Mudocci, Edvard Munch, 1902. Lithograph. © Private collection, courtesy Peder Lund; Model with a Green Scarf (Sultan Abdul Karim). Edvard Munch, 1916. Oil on canvas © Photo: Munchmuseet.
This publication shows how portraiture was central to his art and vision. It informed Munch’s early naturalist style, his mysterious Symbolist works of the 1890s and the vibrant, painterly works he became famous for following his return to Norway in 1909.
“Munch often painted those close to him: family members, friends, artists, writers and patrons. They give us an insight into the people he knew and the milieux he frequented – artistic and intellectual circles that would be defining for Munch’s development as an artist.”
Knut Ljøgodt, Director of the Nordic Institute of Art in Norway.
This publication features full-colour reproductions of Munch's most important portraits, with detailed essays by leading scholars Dr Alison Smith, former Chief Curator at the National Portrait Gallery, now Director of Collections and Research at the Wallace Collection, and by Knut Ljøgodt, Director of the Nordic Institute of Art in Norway.
“Looking at the portraits separately from Munch’s landscapes and more schematic ‘ideas’ pictures, encourages us to consider him as a social being, not just an outsider driven by his own neuroses and suspicion of people.”
Dr Alison Smith, Director of Collections and Research at the Wallace Collection.
Both authors examine the artist’s distinctive approach to capturing both external likeness and internal emotional states. The book essays explore the broader implications of Munch’s portraiture, providing readers with insight into his artistic journey, psychological landscape, and profound impact on modern portraiture.
In Edvard Munch Portraits readers will gain an in-depth understanding of the turbulent times in which Munch lived – ranging from the bohemian artistic circles in Oslo to the German and Norwegian patrons who helped establish his international reputation.
The book offers a close look at the artist’s family, his circle of friends, and the deeply personal experiences that shaped his vision, influencing the way he saw and represented others but also offers some insight into Norway in the 1900s and the rise of the National Socialist Party in Germany, that went on to invade Norway and declare Munch and many other modernist artists, as ‘entartet’ (degenerate).
“As Munch’s works were confiscated from German museums and private collections, many found their way back to Norway, while several portraits were hidden by descendants of the sitters.”
Dr Alison Smith, Director of Collections and Research at the Wallace Collection.
Edvard Munch Portraits is published to accompany the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London, opening 13 March 2025, which will be the first exhibition in the UK to focus on this important, but sometimes overlooked, aspect of his works.
The book is available online for pre-order and gives deep insight into the artist's family and bohemian social circles, along with his German and Norwegian patrons and the friends who helped establish his reputation.
