Was born 12 December 1863 in Löten, a Norwegian province in Hede Marken. He was a descendant of an old lineage of priests and professors. His father was the doctor of the poor of Oslo and almost never charged for his services. When he was five years old his mother died, and then eight years later, his sister also died among hunger and misery. This would mark him throughout his life together with the severe Christianity of his father who was a Puritan and a sad person; two facts which make one understand the emotional unbalance which he suffered during all his life.
His preferred subjects for his works are alcoholism, sickness, and death - legacies of his tragic childhood. He felt attraction and fear towards death. He was petrified of tuberculosis which had inflicted his family with a lot of suffering, he never practiced sports for fear of catching a cold and was careful to never wet his feet. He always maintained a high room temperature in his house and if anyone ever commented that he was not looking too well, he immediately went to bed. He never wanted to visit sick people nor old people and never went to funerals.
He never married, was solitary and shy, a characteristic that became worse towards the end of his life. He saw women as the reincarnation of evil, a type of vampire that absorbed the freedom of men. This, though, did not stop him from becoming involved in some romantic affairs, one of which found him involved in a violent scene in Oslo when a woman shot his hand. After this, he always wore gloves.
He then started to study sculpture, but only for a short time since he soon became in contact with the revolutionary painters that painted both landscapes and Norwegian people and became totally engrossed by this art.
In 1885 he spent various weeks in Paris but never contacted any of his contemporary painters there, later he returned to Oslo quite overwhelmed by Rembrandt and the Spanish painters whom he had become acquainted with at the Louvre.
He returned to Paris in 1890 to study with Bonnat and on that occasion became acquainted with the works of Pissarro, Seurat, Toulouse-Lautrec, Gaughin and van Gogh. He became interested in Japanese art when he was 27 and was as fine an artist as any of the painters that belonged to the School of Paris.
In 1889 he exhibited his paintings in Oslo, an event that brough about some uneasiness, but he was supported by the philosophers and intellectuals who were disciples of Ibsen.
Thanks to a scholarship granted by the Norwegian State, he spent the winter of 1889-90 in Paris and after being granted various other scholarships, travelled around the south of France, Italy and Germany. Between 1892 and 1895 Munch lived a very active life in Berlin. At that time in Germany there was great enthusisam towards Scandinavian literature and there was nothing comparable to expressionist literature, except Munch`s paintings.
It was during this period that he created his most important works, among them: “The Cry” where he presented the public with his concept of fear. It is a painting of terror, yet one of inexplicable schizoid terror, like that which we feel when we awake from a nightmare. The long modulated lines seem to take the echo of the cries to all the corners within a huge box where the fear that is born from the sound reechoes. From this period is also his painting “Frieze of Life”.
When he returned to Paris in 1896 he did it as a maestro and was acclaimed as such. He tried to get in contact with the Nabis and, just like them, wanted to paint a painting of ideas and feelings. He also tried his talent in graphic arts, he made etched plates and lithographs. And also did wood engravings.
In 1907 he divided his time between Berlin and Lubeck. He had numerous disciples: Kirchen, Nolde and Kokoschka and he affirmed his talent in Germany.
When he was 47 and full of glory, he felt that the other precursors of expressionism such as Toulouse-Lautrec, van Gogh and Gaughin has already disappeared and his obsession with death, made him lose his mind thus forcing him to be secluded in a clinic for 6 months due to a nervous depression he was suffering. When he left the clinic he returned to Oslo but his years of glory were over.
He bought four houses which he destined to become studios and warehouses, for he wanted to keep all his works. He even made copies of those works which he managed to sell and went so far as to sometiems own three versions of the same painting.
He started to live a healthier life yet he did not participate very frequently in exhibitions anymore: Zurich 1922, Manheim 1925, Berlin 1927 and Amsterdam 1938. He never returned to Paris, where hardly any of his works were exhibited, which explains why after his most brilliant period, France would forget him.
In 1918, an epidemic of influenza took the lives of many people and he was one of the most affected because he lost many friends. He made a self-portrait of himself entitled “Spanish Influenza”, in which he depicted himself, thin, and emaciated, while sitting in a chair by his bed.
Munch`s love of life once again triumphed over destiny.
In Germany, the Nazis confiscated 82 of his works as they considered him to be a component of degenerate art.
On 23 January 1944, while the world began to live end of the horrible war, Munch died in Oslo as a consequence of an embolism when he 81 years old.
