Edvard MUNCH (1863-1944)
See also : Top 10 Northern Europe Groups Man and woman Art on paper Prints
Chronology : 19th century 1890-1899 1900-1909 1916 1917
Chronology : 19th century 1890-1899 1900-1909 1916 1917
1894 The most beautiful of Vampyrs (was made by Munch)
2008 SOLD 38 M$ including premium
This will be one of the stakes (!) of the season: Sotheby's sells a Vampire of Edvard Munch on November 3 in New York.
Chance of the sales or rediscovery of Munch? A week ago, I devoted an article in the Prints group to a lithographic copy of the "Scream". The next day I announced in my weekly preview the arrival of a Vampire, at Sotheby's in London on October 2! (300 K£, lot 81). But now it's even better: I do not speak of an engraving, but of an oil on canvas.
Munch was a very important artist, who knew perfectly how to mingle love and death. His extraordinary lithograph "Madonna" has also been a few months ago the subject of an article on these networks. He was an illustrator concerned about the disclosure of his work, who made his oils on canvas in a small number of examples and added lithographic issues with a virtually identical drawing. As a result, this female "vampire", with her flame-color long hair, kissing on the neck of her lover, is an image that the auction news bring us often.
The Vampire was painted in four copies in 1893-1894, and the example to be sold is the only one in private hands. It is well known in New York, where it had been loaned during ten years to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Sotheby's expects more than $ 35 million.
On 7 May 2008, a painting with peaceful subject, Girls on a bridge, was sold in the same auction room at $ 30.8 million including expenses.
POST SALE COMMENT
In the chronology of the sales, the first is the print : 325 K£ including fees.
It is always nice to see an important work acknowledged by the verdict of the market. This is the case for this remarkable Vampire, sold $ 38 million charge included.
The image is shared by Wikimedia :
Chance of the sales or rediscovery of Munch? A week ago, I devoted an article in the Prints group to a lithographic copy of the "Scream". The next day I announced in my weekly preview the arrival of a Vampire, at Sotheby's in London on October 2! (300 K£, lot 81). But now it's even better: I do not speak of an engraving, but of an oil on canvas.
Munch was a very important artist, who knew perfectly how to mingle love and death. His extraordinary lithograph "Madonna" has also been a few months ago the subject of an article on these networks. He was an illustrator concerned about the disclosure of his work, who made his oils on canvas in a small number of examples and added lithographic issues with a virtually identical drawing. As a result, this female "vampire", with her flame-color long hair, kissing on the neck of her lover, is an image that the auction news bring us often.
The Vampire was painted in four copies in 1893-1894, and the example to be sold is the only one in private hands. It is well known in New York, where it had been loaned during ten years to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Sotheby's expects more than $ 35 million.
On 7 May 2008, a painting with peaceful subject, Girls on a bridge, was sold in the same auction room at $ 30.8 million including expenses.
POST SALE COMMENT
In the chronology of the sales, the first is the print : 325 K£ including fees.
It is always nice to see an important work acknowledged by the verdict of the market. This is the case for this remarkable Vampire, sold $ 38 million charge included.
The image is shared by Wikimedia :
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1895 The Scream of Nature
2012 SOLD 120 M$ including premium
The Scream by Edvard Munch has every reason to be the most famous image of modern art.
The artist, exalted by the meaning of life, is constantly navigating the limits of a morbid insanity. In 1889, during the Exposition Universelle in Paris, he is fascinated by the intensity of emotions expressed by Van Gogh, Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec.
In early 1892, Munch lives his own road to Damascus. He sees the sky ablaze at sunset, like an indomitable force of nature which has invaded the fjord in a terrible explosion of colors. He writes in his notebook a short poem stating that the happening had generated an intense fatigue to him.
No doubt he will be mesmerized by this vision for over a year, before daring to translate the memory of his anxiety as a painting and a pastel with a title evocating his inspiration: the Scream of Nature.
It took him another two years to exorcise his anxiety. In 1895, he made a second pastel, 79 x 59 cm, to be sold by Sotheby's in New York on May 2. Now conscious of having created a masterpiece, he prepares on the same year the first lithography. The fourth and last version of Munch's Scream is much later.
The pastel of 1895 is exceptional, and Sotheby's expects $ 80M. This is the only version where the artist has included the poem, hand painted into the frame. The two friends are still there in the distance, but are not any more interested in the scene, leaving the main character lonely struggling with his own dehumanization.
This is the only one of the four artworks to be still in private hands, and it had been little seen outside Norway. It is illustrated on Sotheby's page announcing the sale.
I invite you to watch the video shared by Sotheby's International Realty.
POST SALE COMMENT
Ite missa est. In a few words, everything is told: world record for a work of art, $ 120M including premium.
Rarely a record has been so deserved: last original in private hands, this pastel also marks the top of the emotional maturity of the artist on this theme, with dazzling colors.
The image is shared by Wikimedia.
The artist, exalted by the meaning of life, is constantly navigating the limits of a morbid insanity. In 1889, during the Exposition Universelle in Paris, he is fascinated by the intensity of emotions expressed by Van Gogh, Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec.
In early 1892, Munch lives his own road to Damascus. He sees the sky ablaze at sunset, like an indomitable force of nature which has invaded the fjord in a terrible explosion of colors. He writes in his notebook a short poem stating that the happening had generated an intense fatigue to him.
No doubt he will be mesmerized by this vision for over a year, before daring to translate the memory of his anxiety as a painting and a pastel with a title evocating his inspiration: the Scream of Nature.
It took him another two years to exorcise his anxiety. In 1895, he made a second pastel, 79 x 59 cm, to be sold by Sotheby's in New York on May 2. Now conscious of having created a masterpiece, he prepares on the same year the first lithography. The fourth and last version of Munch's Scream is much later.
The pastel of 1895 is exceptional, and Sotheby's expects $ 80M. This is the only version where the artist has included the poem, hand painted into the frame. The two friends are still there in the distance, but are not any more interested in the scene, leaving the main character lonely struggling with his own dehumanization.
This is the only one of the four artworks to be still in private hands, and it had been little seen outside Norway. It is illustrated on Sotheby's page announcing the sale.
I invite you to watch the video shared by Sotheby's International Realty.
POST SALE COMMENT
Ite missa est. In a few words, everything is told: world record for a work of art, $ 120M including premium.
Rarely a record has been so deserved: last original in private hands, this pastel also marks the top of the emotional maturity of the artist on this theme, with dazzling colors.
The image is shared by Wikimedia.
1895 Life, Love, Death and Scream
2014 SOLD for $ 2.4M including premium
Edvard Munch expresses melancholy and loneliness in a graphics that is closer to symbolism than to romanticism. In November 1892 he exhibits his paintings in Berlin. The scandal is immediate and the operation is stopped after one week.
This incident stimulates the creativity of Munch who understands to what extent his art is new and different. He will stay four years in Berlin. His work is a dialogue between painting and printed image. It was in Berlin that he edited his most powerful pictures : Madonna, Vampire, Scream and several versions of Melancholy and of Woman on the beach.
Among the top painters, Munch is one of those who have given the highest importance to engraving. He tried all the techniques and all the possibilities for coloring either by inks or by added watercolor.
The Scream is edited in 1895 as a lithograph on wove paper with a printed inscription in German: Ich fühlte des grosse Geschrei durch die Natur (I felt the great scream throughout nature).
A copy printed in black and uncolored, signed by the artist but undated, is estimated $ 2M for sale by Sotheby's in New York on November 4, lot 53. Its sharp and thick line is beautiful.
This picture is unusual because its production time was very short: the printer had cleared the stone for reuse without asking the authorization of the artist.
This incident stimulates the creativity of Munch who understands to what extent his art is new and different. He will stay four years in Berlin. His work is a dialogue between painting and printed image. It was in Berlin that he edited his most powerful pictures : Madonna, Vampire, Scream and several versions of Melancholy and of Woman on the beach.
Among the top painters, Munch is one of those who have given the highest importance to engraving. He tried all the techniques and all the possibilities for coloring either by inks or by added watercolor.
The Scream is edited in 1895 as a lithograph on wove paper with a printed inscription in German: Ich fühlte des grosse Geschrei durch die Natur (I felt the great scream throughout nature).
A copy printed in black and uncolored, signed by the artist but undated, is estimated $ 2M for sale by Sotheby's in New York on November 4, lot 53. Its sharp and thick line is beautiful.
This picture is unusual because its production time was very short: the printer had cleared the stone for reuse without asking the authorization of the artist.
1895 The Flirt of Munch with Life and Death
2010 SOLD 1.25 M£ including premium
The mysteries of life, death, fertilization, and of the succession of generations have nurtured Munch's entire career and maintained his anguish. His Madonna, whose seven states have been published between 1895 and 1902, is one of the masterpieces in the history of engraving.
It begins in 1894 with a series of paintings. Madonna is a woman naked to the waist up, in front view. Sure of her beauty, she is offering herself to the viewer as the women of Schiele will later do.
The first state of the engraving, in 1895, reveals the meaning of the work. The woman is inserted into a frieze of spermatozoids that is broken to make way for the fetal skeleton, the most notable symbol of the complexity of being as it shows death at the point where life was expected.
No painting of Madonna includes the fetus. The arrival on the market of a hand-colored copy of the first printed state is an event because it makes up for what could have been one of the most important paintings in art history but has never existed.
This signed print, 60 x 44 cm for the image, 70 x 52 cm for the sheet, is estimated £ 500 K, for sale by Bonhams in London on July 13. It is illustrated in the press release shared by AuctionPublicity.
POST SALE COMMENT
This exceptional copy could not stay at the announced estimate. It climbed to £ 1.1 million before fees, 1.25 million pounds including premium.
I am very pleased with this well deserved result.
It begins in 1894 with a series of paintings. Madonna is a woman naked to the waist up, in front view. Sure of her beauty, she is offering herself to the viewer as the women of Schiele will later do.
The first state of the engraving, in 1895, reveals the meaning of the work. The woman is inserted into a frieze of spermatozoids that is broken to make way for the fetal skeleton, the most notable symbol of the complexity of being as it shows death at the point where life was expected.
No painting of Madonna includes the fetus. The arrival on the market of a hand-colored copy of the first printed state is an event because it makes up for what could have been one of the most important paintings in art history but has never existed.
This signed print, 60 x 44 cm for the image, 70 x 52 cm for the sheet, is estimated £ 500 K, for sale by Bonhams in London on July 13. It is illustrated in the press release shared by AuctionPublicity.
POST SALE COMMENT
This exceptional copy could not stay at the announced estimate. It climbed to £ 1.1 million before fees, 1.25 million pounds including premium.
I am very pleased with this well deserved result.
1895 The Ritual Passage of Fertility
2015 SOLD for $ 730K including premium
The two masterpieces in the imaging of Edvard Munch, The Scream and Madonna, were conceived in the same year, 1893. Anxiety and fertility express the great question of life and it is tempting to view them as a pair.
Madonna is a pretty woman whose model Dagny Juel was admired by the artist. She is nude and standing, displayed down to the hips. The head is tilted back and the closed eyes are waiting for pleasure. The red lips express pain according to the explanation provided by the artist and bring this ambiguous idol close to the Vampyr, another of the favorite themes of Munch at the same time. The sinister background marks the uncertainty of the future.
Munch designed for his first Madonna painting the red blood frame on which sperms are slipping and which is broken at the bottom left to display the fetus, a symbol of death since it is lethal outside a woman's body. This unique frame was not kept.
The painting is preceding the lithograph in black and white, which is the subject of various color trials by the artist for choosing the best balance for his future color lithographs.
The original edition of the Madonna lithograph was printed in 1895 in an image size 61 x 46 cm. The prints hand colored by the artist are probably all different. One of them was sold for £ 1.25M including premium by Bonhams on July 13, 2010. Another picture in more tragic colors is estimated $ 1M for sale by Sotheby's in New York on November 23, lot 96.
In 1902, the seventh and final state is edited in the same size with strident red and blue. A print is estimated $ 450K by Sotheby's aslot 97 in the same sale.
RESULTS INCLUDING PREMIUM :
1895 hand colored print : $ 730K
1902 color print : $ 590K
Madonna is a pretty woman whose model Dagny Juel was admired by the artist. She is nude and standing, displayed down to the hips. The head is tilted back and the closed eyes are waiting for pleasure. The red lips express pain according to the explanation provided by the artist and bring this ambiguous idol close to the Vampyr, another of the favorite themes of Munch at the same time. The sinister background marks the uncertainty of the future.
Munch designed for his first Madonna painting the red blood frame on which sperms are slipping and which is broken at the bottom left to display the fetus, a symbol of death since it is lethal outside a woman's body. This unique frame was not kept.
The painting is preceding the lithograph in black and white, which is the subject of various color trials by the artist for choosing the best balance for his future color lithographs.
The original edition of the Madonna lithograph was printed in 1895 in an image size 61 x 46 cm. The prints hand colored by the artist are probably all different. One of them was sold for £ 1.25M including premium by Bonhams on July 13, 2010. Another picture in more tragic colors is estimated $ 1M for sale by Sotheby's in New York on November 23, lot 96.
In 1902, the seventh and final state is edited in the same size with strident red and blue. A print is estimated $ 450K by Sotheby's aslot 97 in the same sale.
RESULTS INCLUDING PREMIUM :
1895 hand colored print : $ 730K
1902 color print : $ 590K
“A lot of what we’re drawn to are things that feel authentic to the artist" - @PublicSchoolNYC on #SothebysPrints pic.twitter.com/yrWyVWTxG5
— Sotheby's (@Sothebys) November 13, 20151896 Loneliness on Beach
2013 SOLD 2.13 M£ including premium
In Paris in 1891, Edvard Munch meditates on the human condition. He is deeply influenced by the art of Gauguin, where the stylization of drawing and the simplification of colors provide an unprecedented strength to the message.
Threatened by melancholy, Munch starts at that time one of his most personal themes, loneliness. A couple is on the beach, but they are quite distant from one another and their mental solitude is complete. This first painting is lost.
In 1896, he comes back to Paris where he perfects his experiences of all printmaking techniques. Aquatint gives the possibility to vary the balance of colors from one copy to another of the same image. He will soon specialize in lithography and woodcut.
On March 20 in London, Christie's sells an aquatint of the young woman on the beach. Well centered, the lonesome figure turns her back to us as in 1891. She is tall, and her straight attitude in her beautiful white dress shows that she has no other problem than her solitude. The only communication she has with her environment is the wind that plays with her very long hair.
Printed in light blue, brown, gray and pink, this print is estimated £ 500K. The image measures 29 x 22 cm on a 45 x 31 cm sheet. Here is the link to the catalog.
This artwork carried out in eleven copies is very rare on the market. This print comes after a recent de-accessioning. During the Nazi forced sales of 1933, it had been purchased by the institute of which its owner had been the keeper.
POST SALE COMMENT
In its great simplicity, this image is one of the most iconic of the engraved work of Munch. The aquatint was sold £ 2.13 million including premium.
The day before, a later print of that scene of loneliness with both characters including the same young woman was sold £ 990K including premium by Sotheby's.
Threatened by melancholy, Munch starts at that time one of his most personal themes, loneliness. A couple is on the beach, but they are quite distant from one another and their mental solitude is complete. This first painting is lost.
In 1896, he comes back to Paris where he perfects his experiences of all printmaking techniques. Aquatint gives the possibility to vary the balance of colors from one copy to another of the same image. He will soon specialize in lithography and woodcut.
On March 20 in London, Christie's sells an aquatint of the young woman on the beach. Well centered, the lonesome figure turns her back to us as in 1891. She is tall, and her straight attitude in her beautiful white dress shows that she has no other problem than her solitude. The only communication she has with her environment is the wind that plays with her very long hair.
Printed in light blue, brown, gray and pink, this print is estimated £ 500K. The image measures 29 x 22 cm on a 45 x 31 cm sheet. Here is the link to the catalog.
This artwork carried out in eleven copies is very rare on the market. This print comes after a recent de-accessioning. During the Nazi forced sales of 1933, it had been purchased by the institute of which its owner had been the keeper.
POST SALE COMMENT
In its great simplicity, this image is one of the most iconic of the engraved work of Munch. The aquatint was sold £ 2.13 million including premium.
The day before, a later print of that scene of loneliness with both characters including the same young woman was sold £ 990K including premium by Sotheby's.
1896 The Ghosts of the Fjord
2019 SOLD for $ 830K including premium
In 1894 in Berlin, Edvard Munch is tempted by the edition of his works. The most significant among these first trials takes up the theme of the two lonely characters, prepared with the dry point.
In the next year he is very prolific including among others the original lithographs of The Scream, Madonna and Vampyr. The Norwegian public does not follow. Happy that The Scream was published by La Revue Blanche, Munch comes to try his luck in Paris where he arrives in February 1896.
Now working with Clot, Munch is perfecting his approach to color lithography. Angst (anxiety) is inspired by an oil on canvas of the same title painted in 1894 on the theme of the funeral procession.
All of them looking in the direction of the observer while ignoring each other, these bereaved characters have small hallucinated eyes. They turn their backs from the fjord. The tormented sky which occupies all the upper half of the image makes this work a counterpart to The Scream. The artist is not mistaken : describing much later the preparatory phase of his Frieze of Life, he puts forward these two works along with Madonna and Vampyr.
After a first state, Vollard chooses Angst among the images to be published in his ambitious album of color lithographs titled Les Peintres-Graveurs. This second and final state of Angst is printed in 1896 by Clot in 100 copies 41 x 39 cm on wove paper 57 x 43 cm. This lithograph is in two tones, a dismal black for the whole figurative part and a scary blood red for the sinuous lines that fill the sky.
The two top auction results for this image were recorded by Sotheby's : $ 900K including premium on May 1, 2008 and $ 830K including premium on October 27, 2016. A copy with full margins is estimated $ 600K for sale by Christie's in New York on April 18, lot 151.
LATER COMMENT (ERRATUM)
The original edition of Angst is not a lithograph but a woodcut.
The second edition, which is the subject of the above discussion, is not a chromolithograph but a two-colored woodcut. This error is made in most of the literature that I have consulted. In the table of contents of Les Peintres-Graveurs, this image is identified by Vollard as MUNCH - Le Soir : bois en deux couleurs.
In the next year he is very prolific including among others the original lithographs of The Scream, Madonna and Vampyr. The Norwegian public does not follow. Happy that The Scream was published by La Revue Blanche, Munch comes to try his luck in Paris where he arrives in February 1896.
Now working with Clot, Munch is perfecting his approach to color lithography. Angst (anxiety) is inspired by an oil on canvas of the same title painted in 1894 on the theme of the funeral procession.
All of them looking in the direction of the observer while ignoring each other, these bereaved characters have small hallucinated eyes. They turn their backs from the fjord. The tormented sky which occupies all the upper half of the image makes this work a counterpart to The Scream. The artist is not mistaken : describing much later the preparatory phase of his Frieze of Life, he puts forward these two works along with Madonna and Vampyr.
After a first state, Vollard chooses Angst among the images to be published in his ambitious album of color lithographs titled Les Peintres-Graveurs. This second and final state of Angst is printed in 1896 by Clot in 100 copies 41 x 39 cm on wove paper 57 x 43 cm. This lithograph is in two tones, a dismal black for the whole figurative part and a scary blood red for the sinuous lines that fill the sky.
The two top auction results for this image were recorded by Sotheby's : $ 900K including premium on May 1, 2008 and $ 830K including premium on October 27, 2016. A copy with full margins is estimated $ 600K for sale by Christie's in New York on April 18, lot 151.
LATER COMMENT (ERRATUM)
The original edition of Angst is not a lithograph but a woodcut.
The second edition, which is the subject of the above discussion, is not a chromolithograph but a two-colored woodcut. This error is made in most of the literature that I have consulted. In the table of contents of Les Peintres-Graveurs, this image is identified by Vollard as MUNCH - Le Soir : bois en deux couleurs.
1902 Four Girls away from the Guardrail
2016 SOLD for $ 55M including premium
Edvard Munch wants to be the artist of existence. His project for a frieze series on life, love and death makes him busy since 1893 but does not calm the emotional instability of his own life.
The legitimate hope for a happy life mercilessly leads to the forbidden love with the Vampire, the untold abortion of Madonna and the open madness of the Scream. The line and color are a scathing expression, after Gauguin and Van Gogh, before Matisse, Kirchner and Kandinsky.
His characters play the tragedy of a mental loneliness which is not canceled by their presence in or near a group. Sometimes the stage is guarded on one side by an endless railing over which one or more actors will come at some time to meditate while leaning over the water. This theatrical similarity is the terrible common feature between the Scream, paroxysm of terror, and the very peaceful Girls on the bridge.
In 1901 and 1902, Munch painted several versions of Girls on the bridge, with various position of the characters. One of these artworks brings a little more hope than the other ones. Far away from the suicidal railing, it displays a tight group of four in an attitude conducive to opening a discussion but indeed still not to the exchange of secrets.
This oil on canvas 101 x 102 cm painted in 1902 was sold for $ 30.8 million including premium by Sotheby's in New York on 7 May 2008. It comes back in the same auction room on November 14, lot 12. The press release of October 21 announces an estimate in excess of $ 50M.
The legitimate hope for a happy life mercilessly leads to the forbidden love with the Vampire, the untold abortion of Madonna and the open madness of the Scream. The line and color are a scathing expression, after Gauguin and Van Gogh, before Matisse, Kirchner and Kandinsky.
His characters play the tragedy of a mental loneliness which is not canceled by their presence in or near a group. Sometimes the stage is guarded on one side by an endless railing over which one or more actors will come at some time to meditate while leaning over the water. This theatrical similarity is the terrible common feature between the Scream, paroxysm of terror, and the very peaceful Girls on the bridge.
In 1901 and 1902, Munch painted several versions of Girls on the bridge, with various position of the characters. One of these artworks brings a little more hope than the other ones. Far away from the suicidal railing, it displays a tight group of four in an attitude conducive to opening a discussion but indeed still not to the exchange of secrets.
This oil on canvas 101 x 102 cm painted in 1902 was sold for $ 30.8 million including premium by Sotheby's in New York on 7 May 2008. It comes back in the same auction room on November 14, lot 12. The press release of October 21 announces an estimate in excess of $ 50M.
Edvard Munch’s ‘Girls on the Bridge’ will headline our Impressionist & Modern Art sales this November: https://t.co/tMh6b1ZWyv pic.twitter.com/SF0jHnPYDD
— Sotheby's (@Sothebys) October 21, 2016
1916 Standing Nude by Munch
2020 SOLD for $ 2.06M including premium
Link to catalogue.
1917 Seated Female Nudes by Munch
2009 SOLD for $ 2.77M including premium by Sotheby's
1917 Indifference
2016 SOLD for £ 1.56M including premium
Edvard Munch expresses in his art his own mystical and psychological or even psychiatric torments. In Paris and Berlin he painted the difficulty of communication. The Scream is his strongest message because the call does not reach any listener despite the small group away.
Melancholy and silence are among his favorite themes. The Young Woman on the Beach and Two Human Beings (the Lonely Ones) must be considered together and were probably designed simultaneously by the artist. The tall blonde woman in white dress is the same in both scenes. Watching the ocean, she turns her back to the artist, to the viewer and to life.
In the second version a man has come from behind, dressed in dark. He bends his head without looking at the woman. These two people are in a close vicinity one another and psychologically indifferent.
From 1894 Munch uses the prints to disclose his distress. Coloring techniques are varied. He tries all of them with a great technical skill. A very rare aquatint and drypoint 29 x 22 cm of the Young woman on the beach, finished in 1896, was sold for £ 2.13M including premium by Christie's on March 20, 2013.
In 1899 and 1917, the artist uses the woodcut to republish the Two Human beings. Different states allow a more or less figurative vision of the beach, the ocean and the horizon. Hues become softer, expressing both the absence of conflict and the impossibility of communication in that peaceful scene.
On September 27 in London, Sotheby's sells a print 39 x 55 cm of the Two Human beings, probably completed around 1917, lot 141 estimated £ 400K. The artist or his printer used two techniques : the monotype applied through a stencil is linking the ground between the two characters, highlighting that their separate lives occur in the same place at the same time. The rest of the image is printed by three wooden blocks. The surroundings have become abstract.
Melancholy and silence are among his favorite themes. The Young Woman on the Beach and Two Human Beings (the Lonely Ones) must be considered together and were probably designed simultaneously by the artist. The tall blonde woman in white dress is the same in both scenes. Watching the ocean, she turns her back to the artist, to the viewer and to life.
In the second version a man has come from behind, dressed in dark. He bends his head without looking at the woman. These two people are in a close vicinity one another and psychologically indifferent.
From 1894 Munch uses the prints to disclose his distress. Coloring techniques are varied. He tries all of them with a great technical skill. A very rare aquatint and drypoint 29 x 22 cm of the Young woman on the beach, finished in 1896, was sold for £ 2.13M including premium by Christie's on March 20, 2013.
In 1899 and 1917, the artist uses the woodcut to republish the Two Human beings. Different states allow a more or less figurative vision of the beach, the ocean and the horizon. Hues become softer, expressing both the absence of conflict and the impossibility of communication in that peaceful scene.
On September 27 in London, Sotheby's sells a print 39 x 55 cm of the Two Human beings, probably completed around 1917, lot 141 estimated £ 400K. The artist or his printer used two techniques : the monotype applied through a stencil is linking the ground between the two characters, highlighting that their separate lives occur in the same place at the same time. The rest of the image is printed by three wooden blocks. The surroundings have become abstract.
Our 27 Sept Prints & Multiples sale in #London includes two moving and momentous Munch works https://t.co/PXt2mVLASC pic.twitter.com/VvDVFJ1bTy
— Sotheby's (@Sothebys) September 19, 2016
1918 Girls and War
2013 SOLD 845 K$ including premium
PRE SALE DISCUSSION
Edvard Munch, pioneer for the painting of psychological themes, always considered printing as a major art and tried by himself all the techniques. The monochrome image, of which he is one of the best artists, is however only an intermediate step. Two examples provide a glimpse into the creative link between drawing and color.
On 13 July 2010, Bonhams sold for £ 1.25 million including premium an example from the first state of Madonna in 1895 which had been hand-colored by the artist, thus constituting a test version of a multicolored painted or printed image that did not emerge.
Girls on the bridge is one of his regular themes. Despite the peaceful attitudes, this series comes in the following of the Scream, first by its endless pier, then by the group present in that place without knowing why and thus raising once again the question of the meaning of life.
The woodcut made in 1918, 52 x 43 cm, is pessimistic with a too ridged composition and with its three girls too clustered in an otherwise empty space, looking for who knows what beyond the railing.
This image, also hand-colored, is estimated $ 700K, for sale by Christie 's in New York on October 29. Here is the link to the catalog. It is the preparation by the artist of a lithograph to be issued. This print will have a very small release, perhaps because Europe still lived horrors far more practical for the public than the psychological dramas of Munch.
POST SALE COMMENT
Very good price for this print from a later period of the artist: $ 845K including premium.
Edvard Munch, pioneer for the painting of psychological themes, always considered printing as a major art and tried by himself all the techniques. The monochrome image, of which he is one of the best artists, is however only an intermediate step. Two examples provide a glimpse into the creative link between drawing and color.
On 13 July 2010, Bonhams sold for £ 1.25 million including premium an example from the first state of Madonna in 1895 which had been hand-colored by the artist, thus constituting a test version of a multicolored painted or printed image that did not emerge.
Girls on the bridge is one of his regular themes. Despite the peaceful attitudes, this series comes in the following of the Scream, first by its endless pier, then by the group present in that place without knowing why and thus raising once again the question of the meaning of life.
The woodcut made in 1918, 52 x 43 cm, is pessimistic with a too ridged composition and with its three girls too clustered in an otherwise empty space, looking for who knows what beyond the railing.
This image, also hand-colored, is estimated $ 700K, for sale by Christie 's in New York on October 29. Here is the link to the catalog. It is the preparation by the artist of a lithograph to be issued. This print will have a very small release, perhaps because Europe still lived horrors far more practical for the public than the psychological dramas of Munch.
POST SALE COMMENT
Very good price for this print from a later period of the artist: $ 845K including premium.
