Edvard Munch

G. Woll, Edvard Munch – The Complete Graphic Works, London, 2012, no. 49, this impression illustrated

New York, National Academy of Design, Edvard Munch and Harald Sohlberg: Landscapes of the Mind, 1995-96

Greenwich, Bruce Museum, Love, Isolation and Darkness: The Art of Edvard Munch, 1996-97

Vienna, Albertina, Edvard Munch, Theme and Variation, 2003

Basel, Fondation Beyeler; Schwäbisch Hall, Kunsthalle Würth, Edvard Munch: Signs of Modern Art, 2007

National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Edvard Munch: Master Prints, 2010

“…The sea – it is as incomprehensible as existence – it is incomprehensible as death – as eternal as longing.”

_{- Edvard Munch cited in S. Prideaux, Edvard Munch: Behind “The Scream”, New Haven, 2005, p. 79}

Edvard Munch’s ethereal and enigmatic Young Woman on the Beach has captivated audiences for over a century. Along with The Scream, it remains one of his most recognisable and desirable prints, rife with symbolism and Munchian angst. This saturated mezzotint and drypoint is one of his most stylistically and technically accomplished interpretations of a pensive woman by the sea. The fair figure draped in pure white appears throughout his early oeuvre of the 1880s and 90s, perhaps most notably in a long-lost painting known as The Lonely Ones (1891-92). Obsessed with the mysterious maiden by the jagged shoreline, Munch continued to portray her on canvas and paper repeatedly.

A prolific period for Munch as a painter-printmaker, the 1890s saw the creation of Young Woman on the Beach, along with his renowned woodcut Two Human Beings (The Lonely Ones). As in the 1891-92 painting, the woman in Two Human Beings stands at a distance from a man in black, facing an endless body of water, the space between them heightening the sense of tension and isolation. By contrast, Young Woman on the Beach is a softer portrayal of isolation and longing. Standing alone, she has only the ebbing and flowing tide to commune with. Rather than contemplate her human relationships, viewers are thus invited to contemplate her - and by extension their - relationship with the natural world. This dialogue between the physical world and the human psyche permeates Munch’s work.

The expansive seascape, a symbol of yearning, is not merely decorative, but reflects the Young Woman’s inner desires. The question is, does she seek companionship? Or is she yearning for freedom and independence? With his use of the Rückenfigur technique, the artist invites viewers to empathise with and puzzle over his contemplative golden-haired subject. Championed by 19th Century Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich and Munch’s fellow countryman Johan Christian Dahl, the Rückenfigur, or “figure from the back” is a compositional device which lures the beholder into embodying the Young Woman and adopting her perspective.

This painterly print, inked à la poupée, is an especially impactful example of this rare and important subject. One of just twelve existing impressions, it is the only known example of the fifth variant (of seven) identified by Gerd Woll. Each impression is printed in slightly different tones, with alterations to the shoreline. Using a poupée, or a “doll-shaped” bundle of fabric, Munch carefully added highlights to this fifth variant, giving her golden-red locks that stand in stark contrast against the jewel-toned waters. Layered with pigments, and layered in meaning, this mixed-media print best demonstrates the inventiveness and creative expression that made Edvard Munch a leader in Modernism.