Edvard Munch: love and angst

Edvard Munch: Love and Angst explores the life and work of the renowned artist Edvard Munch (1863-1944), best known today as a painter. Interestingly, his reputation was actually established through his prints, which played a central role in his creative process. Munch's printmaking was experimental and innovative, with him continually revisiting the subjects of his paintings in striking prints. These prints evoke a wide range of emotion and mood through the use of varied techniques, showcasing his artistic prowess.

Munch's early life in the industrial town of Kristiania (renamed Oslo in 1925) was marked by sickness and poverty. His initial works were centred on expressing deep emotional experiences, particularly the deaths of his mother and teenage sister during his upbringing, as well as passionate yet unhappy love affairs, which his deeply religious father disapproved of. Inspired by his encounters with a Bohemian society of artists, writers, and poets, he developed a visual landscape that radically deviated from the slick society portraits and grand Scandinavian landscapes that were fashionable at the time. These efforts, while attracting considerable attention and much criticism, saw Munch practising with little financial success as a painter for ten years before earning recognition for his profoundly innovative printmaking.

Written by a team of acknowledged experts, along with an interview by writer Karl Ove Knausgaard, this book provides fresh insights into the production of some of Munch's most remarkable works. Edvard Munch: Love and Angst will captivate anyone interested in the artist's work and life, revealing new aspects of his artistic genius.