Biography of Edvard Munch

* Born in 1863, in Loten, Norway

* Died in 1944, in Oslo, Norway

* Nationality Norwegian

* Field Painting

* Movement Expressionism

* Most famous work « The Scream »

The Norwegian artist is regarded as a pioneer in the Expressionist movement in modern painting.

At an early stage Munch was recognized in Germany and central Europe as one of the creators of a new epoch.

Munch’s art from the 1890s is the most well known, but his later work is steadily attracting greater attention, and it appears to inspire present-day artists in particular.

Edvard Munch grew up in Norway’s capital, Oslo, then called Christiania.

His father, Christian Munch was a religious military doctor earning a modest income.

His wife, who was 20 years his junior, died of tuberculosis when Edvard was only five years old.

After the death of his mother, in 1868, Munch was raised by his father, Christian Munch, until 1889 when his father died

Edvard’s older ( and his favourite ) sister, Sophie, died of the disease at the age of 15.

Edvard himself was often ill. A younger sister was diagnosed with mental illness at an early age.

Of the five siblings only one, Andreas, ever married, only to die a few months after the wedding.
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This may explain the bleakness and pessimism of much of Munch’s work.

In fact, in his art Munch turned again and again to the memory of illness, death and grie .

He would later say, “Sickness, insanity and death were the angels that surrounded my cradle and they have followed me throughout my life.”

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In 1879, Munch enrolled in a technical college to study engineering, but frequent illnesses interrupted his studies.

In 1880, he left the college to become a painter. In 1881, he enrolled at the Royal School of Art and Design of Kristiania

Munch traveled to Paris in 1885, and his work began to show the influence of French painters – first of the impressionists,