Tate Modern is to hold a major exhibition reassessing the work of Norwegian painter Edvard Munch.
Edvard Munch: The Modern Eye will look at the artist’s pictorial work in the 20th century and his interest in photography, film and the rebirth of stage production.
Munch (1863–1944) is often presented as a 19th-century painter, a Symbolist or a pre-Expressionist. However this exhibition will show him as a 20th-century artist initially inspired by Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, and thoroughly representing the spirit of his age.
Around 60 paintings and 50 photographs will be featured, including a selection of the artist’s signature paintings as well as his own lesser-known photographic and filmic work. The show will also illustrate how Munch engaged with the current affairs of the day, and how he was inspired by scenes he had observed in the street or incidents reported in the press or on the radio. He frequently worked outdoors to capture scenes of everyday life.
Visitors will see how Munch often repeated a single motif over a long period of time in order to re-work it. There will be versions of his most celebrated works such as The Sick Child 1885–1927.
Munch adopted photography in the early years of the 20th century and his photographic activities largely involved self-portraiture, which he obsessively restaged and reworked. In the 1930s he developed an eye disease and made poignant works which charted the effects of his degenerating sight. The exhibition includes his last work which was a self-portrait.
Tate Modern is open daily 10am–6pm (10pm Fri and Sat), admission free. Edvard Munch: The Modern Eye is on show daily from 27 June to 14 October, 10am–5pm, (9pm Fri and Sat), admission £14, concessions £12.20.
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Author: Jonathan Thomas
Jonathan is a consummate Anglophile who launched Anglotopia.net in 2007 to channel his passion for Britain. Londontopia is its sister publication dedicated to everything London.