Workers Returning Home

The picture probably shows a view of the Eureka Mekaniske Verksted, a factory at Skøyen, near Munch's home at Ekely (Woll 2008, 1232). Manual labourers became a central theme of Munch's art from around 1910. He depicted workers from shipping, forestry, agriculture and manufacturing industries, and even those who helped to build his studio at Ekely. He developed plans for a monumental frieze on the theme of manual labour for Oslo City Hall, also called the Oslo Frieze (Woll 1993, 99). Although the work was never realised, his sketches and studies reveal his vision, and the theme is thoroughly discussed by Gerd Woll (Woll 1993). Munch first addressed this theme in 1909, having just moved to Kragerø after many years abroad (Woll 2008, M 873; M 874; M 876; M 877). It was an interest he pursued during the period he lived at Jeløy near Moss, where he frequently encountered local factory workers.

After moving to the property he had bought at Ekely in 1916, Munch found new material for his series on labourers, including the scene depicted here. A mass of people trudges forward towards the viewer, some in black, others in paler clothes. In the background stands the factory with its tall chimney stack, which is balanced in the picture by an electrical pylon to the left. Munch has chosen to set the workers in a snow-covered winter landscape. With rapid brushstrokes, he evokes the dynamic of the flowing crowd, the speed and motion of the workers as they head home at the end of their working day. With this work, Munch created an image of modern society at the phase of industrialisation, expansion, and growing solidarity among the working class. In his pictures, he alternates between the themes of actual physical labour and groups of workers on their way home at the end of their shifts. His pictures of smaller towns or forestry work differ from the representations of factories in modern urban centres. One of the art historical precedents for these labourer scenes is the work of Belgian artist Constantin Meunier (1831--1905) and his depictions of miners.

The picture was first shown at an exhibition at Blomqvist in Kristiania in 1921. It also featured in the major 1927 retrospective in Berlin and Oslo. In addition, Munch painted a large watercolour of the same scene (The Munch Museum, MM.T.01855), and in connection with the commission for Freia Chocolate Factory, it served as the basis for a small preparatory sketch in coloured pencil (The Munch Museum, MM.T.02025; Woll 2008, 1232). The painting entered the museum's collection in 1970 as part of the Charlotte and Christian Mustad bequest.

Wenche Volle

The text was first published in Edvard Munch in the National Museum. A comprehensive overview (Oslo: National Museum, 2022).

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