Mai Britt Guleng

A beautifully illustrated catalogue on the most comprehensive and ambitious full-scale retrospective of Munch’s artistic oeuvre ever. In conjunction with the 150th anniversary of the birth of Edvard Munch (1863–1944) in 2013, a “once in a lifetime” exhibition is produced by the Munch Museum and the National Museum of Art, Architecture, and Design in Oslo. “Munch 150” is the most comprehensive and ambitious full-scale retrospective of Munch’s artistic oeuvre ever. It includes both an exceptional number of highlights, as well as some works that are less known, and is based on extensive loans from public and private collections. The exhibition and its catalogue encompass the entire development of Munch’s art from the 1880s to his death in 1944; the primary focus will be on Munch’s paintings, prints, drawings, and photographs. They cover Munch’s oeuvre in an overarching perspective: Self-presentation and self-portraiture; Places and perception; Visual rhetoric; The Frieze of Life as a lifelong project; Munch and public life; Narration and abstraction; Figure and representation; The staging of gender; and The construction of Munch after 1944. The catalogue also reflects Munch scholarship from recent decades revitalizing the artist’s importance, and include a timeline, a biography, and an index of names and places.