Munch at Neue Galerie
The best of “Munch and Expressionism” in New York
The great Norwegian artist Edvard Munch (1863–1944) is best known and loved for his mesmerizing pastel, The Scream (see below), which has become an emblem of nightmarish emotion. But despite a life filled infamously with mental anguish, Munch created a legacy of astoundingly beautiful, sensual and haunting works. The Neue Galerie in New York, in partnership with the Munch Museum in Oslo, put together a historic exhibit last spring of Munch’s work seen side by side with that of German (Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner) and Austrian (Egon Schiele) Expressionists—artists who influenced Munch and who were, in turn, influenced by him. The show, “Munch and Expressionism,” included 35 extraordinary paintings and 50 works on paper, such as The Scream and the Munch print Madonna, below.
“Munch’s use of vivid color intensifies the emotional power of his subject matter, an approach which helped pave the way for an entirely new attitude towards art in the early twentieth century,” say the exhibit’s curators, Expressionist scholar Dr. Jill Lloyd and Munch specialist Dr. Reinhold Heller. With Expressionism now back in vogue in European and American art, the Munch show and the classic works it contains are a powerful reminder of the movement’s original inspiration.
