About
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- Edvard Munch bestandskatalog
The artist who faces us here is clearly worn out, yet the manner in which he is painted suggests vitality and energy. The figure, the chair and the sickbed are rendered with bold colour fields and large, sweeping lines. The dominant tones are yellow, green and brown, with interpolations of red and blue. The details are toned down, but the shape and position of the head and its open mouth seem to allude to the face in the artist's own painting The Scream from 1893 (The National Museum, NG.M.00930).
Around the turn of the year 1918--1919, Munch fell ill, possibly with the Spanish flu, a pandemic that killed many millions of people across Europe in the years 1917--1920. In a series of studies, sketches and paintings, Munch documented the impact the illness had on him in its various stages. With its focus on sickness and convalescence, the painting evokes human vulnerability and mortality, themes that preoccupied Munch throughout his career. The chair is a recurrent prop in several of his best known depictions of sickness and death, such as *Spring *and Death in the Sickroom (The National Museum, NG.M.00498, NG.M.00940).
Ageing and change are aspects of life Munch addresses in many of his late self-portraits. The reference in the title to the Spanish flu reinforces the idea of disease as existentially life-threatening. Close contact with serious illness and death had been a feature of Munch's younger years, forming a theme he explored in works such as The Sick Child and Spring (The National Museum, NG.M.00839, NG.M.00498). In many of his surviving letters, Munch often expresses a fear of illness and worries about his own health. In recent years, however, it has been questioned whether Munch did in fact catch the Spanish flu in 1919, or whether the painting should rather be viewed as a deliberate dramatisation (Steihaug 2013).
The work is the latest of four painted self-portraits by Munch in the National Museum's collection (The National Museum, NG.M.01915, NG.M.00470, NG.M.01229, NG.M.01867). It belongs to a late phase in his production and was painted a few years after he settled at Ekely, on the western outskirts of Kristiania (today within Oslo). The large format of the work, its broad painterly register and powerfully expressive quality are typical of his portrait art in the first decades of the new century. Also characteristic is the concise style with bold colours, a shallow pictorial space and the sweeping brushstrokes.
This is one of Munch's largest and most monumentally conceived selfportraits. An undated sketch in red crayon probably served as a preliminary study (The Munch Museum, MM.T.00218-11 verso). There also exist several loosely related drawings and two smaller works, but in these the subject is differently framed (Woll 2008, M 1295, M 1297).
Together with works such as Man in the Cabbage Field and Autumn Ploughing (The National Museum, NG.M.01865, NG.M.01863), the painting has assumed a prominent place in the museum's presentation of the later phase of Munch's production. It was gifted to the National Gallery by Charlotte and Christian Mustad in connection with the museum's 100th anniversary in 1937.
Øystein Ustvedt
The text was first published in Edvard Munch in the National Museum. A comprehensive overview (Oslo: National Museum, 2022).
- Creation date:
- 1919
- Other titles:
- Selvportrett i spanskesyken (NOR)
Autoritratto con febbre spagnola (ITA) - Object type:
- Painting
- Materials and techniques:
- Olje på lerret
- Material:
- Canvas
- Dimensions:
- Height: 150 cm
- Width: 131 cm
- Keywords:
- Visual art
- Classification:
- 532 - Bildende kunst
- Motif - type:
- Self portrait, Portrait
- Motif - person:
- Munch, Edvard (depicted person)
- Inventory no.:
- NG.M.01867
- Cataloguing level:
- Single object
- Inscriptions:
- Primary, Signature and dating, oppe venstre: Edv. Munch 1919
- Acquisition:
- Gift from Charlotte and Christian Mustad 1937
- Provenance:
- [40] Previous owner, Christian Nicolai Mustad
[40] Previous owner, Charlotte Mustad - Owner and collection:
- Nasjonalmuseet for kunst, arkitektur og design, The Fine Art Collections
- Photo:
- Høstland, Børre/Lathion, Jacques
- Hansen, Vibeke Waallann, et al. Edvard Munch i Nasjonalmuseet: en samlet oversikt. Redigert av Ustvedt, Øystein, et al. Oslo: Nasjonalmuseet, 2022. kat.nr. 55.
- Johannesen, Ina. «Munch på Ekely», i «Ekely. Historien om Munchs Ekely og kunstnerkolonien i Munchs hage», 2019. 47.
- Ustvedt, Øystein. Munch: En introduksjon til bildene og livet. Oslo: Stenersens forlag, 2018. 166.
- Jacob, Carmen Fernández. «Edvard Munch (Löten 1863 - Skoyen 1944). Biografía, obra pictória», i «La patología ocular en la pintura a través de la historia clínica oftalmológica», 2017. 171.
- Berman, Patricia G. «Self-Portraits ‘As’: Expressionist Embodiments», i «Munch and Expressionism», utstillingskatalog, 2016. 92.
- Ravenal, John B. Jasper Johns og Edvard Munch. Inspirasjon og forvandling. Utstillingskatalog. Richmond og Oslo: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Yale University Press og Munchmuseet, 2016. 80.
- Steihaug, Jon-Ove. «Mapplethorpe + Munch», i «Mapplethorpe + Munch», utstillingskatalog, 2016. 19.
- Endresen, Signe M. «Serial Experiments: Close Readings of Edvard Munch’s Det grønne værelset [avhandling, ph.d.]». Universitetet i Oslo, 2015. 28.
- Grøgaard, Stian. Edvard Munch: et utsatt liv. Oslo: Akademika, 2013. 352.
- Steihaug, Jon-Ove. «Edvard Munchs performative selvportretter», i «Edvard Munch 1863-1944», utstillingskatalog, 2013. 19–20, 22.
- Müller-Westermann, Iris. «A Modern Eye: Edvard Munch’s Self-Portraits After 1908», i «Edvard Munch. The Modern Eye», utstillingskatalog, 2012. 285–6, 290.
- Bischoff, Ulrich. Edvard Munch 1863-1944: Images of Life and Death. Köln: Taschen, 2011. 88.
- Goldberg, Itzhak. «Les autoportraits de Munch: Une obsession autobiographique», i «Edvard Munch. L’oeil moderne», utstillingskatalog, 2011. 47.
- Chang, Alison. «Negotiating Modernity: Edvard Munch’s Late Figural Work 1900-1925». [upublisert avhandling, ph.d.]. University of Pennsylvania, 2010. 150, 204–5.
- Junillon, Ingrid. Edvard Munch face à Henrik Ibsen: impressions d’un lecteur. Leuven: Peeters, 2009. 99.
- Woll, Gerd. Edvard Munch: samlede malerier: B. 3: 1909-1920. Oslo: Cappelen Damm, 2008. kat.nr. 1296.
- Yvenes, Marianne, et al. Museumsfeber: Verk fra samlingene, inkludert: Louise Lawler: 24.09.2005-01.01.2006. Oslo: Nasjonalmuseet for kunst, arkitektur og design, 2005. 78.
- Müller-Westermann, Iris. Munch själv. Utstillingskatalog. Stockholm: Moderna Museet, 2005. 136–8, 140.
- Galleri Kaare Berntsen. Høstutstillingen 2004. Oslo: Kaare Berntsen, 2004. 20, 23.
- Lange, Marit. «Edvard Munch. Från realism til expressionism», i «Edvard Munch», utstillingskatalog, 2002. 14–15.
- Prelinger, Elizabeth, et al. After the Scream: the late paintings of Edvard Munch. Atlanta: High Museum of Art og Yale University Press, 2002. 68–9.
- Nasjonalgalleriet, red. Norske malerier. Katalog. Oslo, 1992. 346.
- Bruno, Gianfranco. «Edvard Munch - il poema dell’immaginario», i «Munch», utstillingskatalog, 1985. 4.
- Nasjonalgalleriet, red. Katalog over norsk malerkunst: med 158 illustrasjoner. Oslo, 1968. kat.nr. 1306.
- Jedlicka, Gotthard. «Über einige selbstbildnisse von Edvard Munch». Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch Vol. 20 (1958). 244–5.
- Nasjonalgalleriet, red. Katalog over norsk malerkunst. Oslo, 1950. kat.nr. 1087.
- Deknatel, Frederick B. Edvard Munch. Boston: Institute of Contemporary Art, 1950. 59.
- Gauguin, Pola. Edvard Munch. Oslo: Aschehoug, 1946. 272.
- Thiis, Jens. Edvard Munch og hans samtid: Slekten, livet og kunsten, geniet. Oslo: Gyldendal, 1933. 316.
- Nasjonalgalleriet, red. Edvard Munch. Utstillingskatalog. Oslo, 1927. kat.nr. 234.
Nasjonalmuseet's collection catalogue is a living resource of information gathered since the 1830's. Some records may contain language or ideas that today could be perceived as outdated, offensive or discriminatory with regard to for instance gender, sexuality, ethnicity or disability, and that may be at odds with the museum's values regarding equality and diversity.
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Other works by Edvard Munch
Night in NiceEdvard Munch(1891)
Mother and DaughterEdvard MunchAntagelig 1897
MoonlightEdvard Munch1895
Winter on the FjordEdvard Munch1915
The Frenchman. Marcel ArchinardEdvard MunchAntagelig 1904
Mrs. SchwarzEdvard Munch(1906)
PubertyEdvard Munch(1894)
Garden in Snow IIEdvard MunchPlaten utført 1913; trykket 1913
The ScreamEdvard Munch1893
Study of a HeadEdvard Munch1883
MadonnaEdvard Munch(1894)
Street in Kragerø with ChildrenEdvard Munch1910

























































