LONDON, ENGLAND.-The Royal Academy of Arts presents Edvard Munch By Himself, on view through December 11, 2005. Edvard Munch (1863–1944), the celebrated Norwegian artist, is regarded as one of the 20th century’s greatest painters. Edvard Munch by Himself, the first major exhibition in London since Edvard Munch: The Frieze of Life (National Gallery, 1992), focuses on the artist’s lesser-known self-portraits and will be the first time that such a large cross section, from all stages of his career, has been brought together. Starting with the first self-portrait painted as a seventeen-year old student at the Royal School of Drawing, Kristiania, the exhibition concludes with the last works produced in Ekely in the 1940s. Edvard Munch by Himself, drawn largely from the Munch Museet collection in Oslo, comprises of 150 paintings, drawings, etchings and sketchbooks as well as rarely-seen photographic self-portraits.

Edvard Munch by Himself represents a unique opportunity to survey Munch’s career as he recorded himself passing through moments of self-doubt, depression, illness and passion. These self-portraits capture the artist’s obsession with his own physical and mental well-being, concerns shaped by personal experiences, including the deaths of his mother (1868) and his elder sister (1877) from tuberculosis, and his own weak health and bouts of depression. Included in the exhibition are Self-portrait. Man with Bronchitis (1920), representative of his preoccupations with his health, and the notable Self-Portrait Between Clock and Bed (1940-42). Munch’s strong use of colour and distortion of the human form became characteristic of the way in which he communicates his feelings as a consequence of his personal experiences.

Curated by Iris Müller-Westermann, Curator of International Art at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, the exhibition is divided into six chronological sections, depicting the relationship between the major events in Munch’s life and his art. The exhibition opens with three early experimental self-portraits from the 1880s and leads on to work from the 1890s, showing how Munch formulated new ways of representing himself as a modern symbolist artist. In his art from around 1900 Munch can be seen exploring the artist’s role as an outsider and his relationship to society.

Between 1902 and 1909, despite little recognition locally, Munch experienced artistic success in Germany and France. During this same period, however, he underwent a deep crisis of self-doubt that culminated in a nervous breakdown. The self-portraits of this period offer a candid view into his state of mind revealing not only his inner struggles but also his frank self-analysis which, in turn, reflects the emergence of psychoanalysis. Abandoning the language of the Symbolists, Munch lightened his palette and used more directly expressive brush strokes. Munch returned to Norway, where he was gaining notice, and, between 1909 and 1921 he resumed work with renewed vigour. The self-portraits from these years show an artist who had become more balanced and stable. Earlier themes, such as his relationship with the opposite sex and his role as an outsider, appear in a new invigorated form. Munch spent the last twenty years of his life from 1922 to 1944 in seclusion at his house in Ekely where he reveals his preoccupation with mortality and his own artistic legacy.

Throughout his artistic career, over more than sixty years, Munch was preoccupied with his health, sexuality, and mortality. Munch’s stark, uncompromising self-portraits reflect his close friendship with and admiration for the work of his contemporaries who included, among others, Henrik Ibsen, Knut Hamsun, and August Strindberg who advocated the portrayal of the unconscious in their work.

On his death in 1944 Munch bequeathed all of the works in his possession to the City of Oslo which founded the Munch-Museet in 1963. It is largely from this unparalleled collection that Edvard Munch by Himself is drawn. The exhibition coincides with the centenary of Norway’s independence from Sweden.

This exhibition has been organised by Moderna Museet, Stockholm and is curated by Iris Müller-Westermann with assistance, in London, from Norman Rosenthal, Exhibitions Secretary and Adrian Locke, Exhibitions Curator of the Royal Academy of Arts.

A full colour catalogue, published by RA Publications, accompanies the exhibition. Written by curator Iris Müller-Westermann, the text follows Munch’s career from his beginnings as a student in the 1880s to his death in 1944. Edvard Munch by Himself examines, for the first time, Munch’s extensive œuvre of painted and graphic self-portraits alongside his rarely seen drawings and photographs. These works are set in context of the author’s incisive account of the artist’s life and career.