Edvard Munch

Edvard Munch (1863—1944) is the artist behind some of the world’s most famous paintings.

He is regarded as a pioneer of expressionism in art, a movement which focused on expressing human internal emotions.

Today, Kode and Bergen own the third largest Edvard Munch collection in the world, consisting of more than 100 works on paper and 50 paintings.

It originates from Rasmus Meyer’s collection and the works were collected in close dialogue with the artist himself. Meyer was among the first significant collectors of Edvard Munch’s art and he acquired major works from all of Munch’s artistic phases.

The collection has since been extended through purchases for Bergen Visual Arts Museum and not least through Rolf Stenersen’s gift to Bergen in 1971.

Kode has displayed a large part of the Edvard Munch collection in a permanent exhibition at Rasmus Meyer.

Munch at Kode

Kode has some of the most central works from the Frieze of Life—a series of paintings Munch started in 1889, where he depicts the inner life of modern man and which he himself called his major project.

The frieze consists of a series of paintings with motifs grouped under the main themes love, anxiety and death and with the beach and the forest as common nature elements.

Munch’s main intention with the Frieze of Life was to “have life explained to me and its meaning … (and) to help others make clear life to them”. 

The paintings “Jealousy”, “Melancholy”, “Woman in Three Stages”, “Evening on Karl Johan Street” and “By the Deathbed” are all part of the Frieze of Life and exhibited together at Rasmus Meyer.

Rasmus Meyer bought his first Munch painting in 1906 and in 1908 he made his first purchase directly from the artist. The year after, the two of them met for the first time, and Munch later writes personally to Munch:

Munch worked innovatively and experimentally with his graphic works.

Kode has a substantial collection of works on paper and among these are famous motifs like “Scream” and “Madonna”, as an ink drawing and a lithography respectively.

Kode can also present works from Stenersen’s collection like “Morning Yawn” and “Winter Landscape from Thüringen”.

The work “Winter Night” (1930–1931) is one of Munch’s latest works in the Stenersen Collection.

Death and legacy

Edvard Munch died in 1944.

Munch’s art has always been distinctively forceful. It is life itself he plays out before us and we are drawn into this drama.

With innovative narrative techniques, Munch manages to catch the spectator. The motifs remain personal and relevant—even a hundred years after they were created.