Edvard Munch Norwegian, 1863-1944

Rolf Stenersen, Oslo (acquired from the artist); thence by descent

Oslo, Nasjonalgalleriet, 1927, no. 245a
Oslo, Kunstforeningen, 1934
Oslo, Kunstnernes hus, 1936
Kragerø, Kunstforening; Stavanger, Kunstforening; Kristiansand, Kunstforening, 1936, no. 30
Amsterdam, Stedelijk, 1937, no. 57
Bergen, Kunstforeningen, 1937, no. 30
Oslo, The City Hall, 1950-52, no. 123
Oslo, Munch-museet, Edvard Munch Portretter, 1994, no. 119 (illustrated in colour in the catalogue)
Oslo, Stenersenmuseet, Stenersens Munch, 2003-2004, n.n. (illustrated in colour in the catalogue)  

Rolf E. Stenersen, Edvard Munch - Close-Up of a Genius, Oslo, 2001, p. 177, discussed
Finn Robert Jensen, 'Stenersen og geniet', Aftenposten, 16 April 2003, p. 28, illustrated 
Fredrik Wandrup, 'Geniet og visergutten', Dagbladet, 19 April 2003, p. 45, illustrated
Lotte Sandberg, 'Med lommelykt på Munch', Aftenposten, 26 April 2003, illustrated 

Rolf E Stenersen, 1899-1978

The young stock-broker Rolf E Stenersen first met Munch in 1921 when he visited the artist at his studio in Ekely, aged just twenty-two. From then until Munch's death in 1944, Stenersen became the artist's most important patron, and the closest Munch ever had to a professional adviser and amanuensis. By his own admission Stenersen: 'had to take pride in being both errand boy and consultant. By doing such services for Munch he was allowed to come to his house, see his pictures and listen to him talk. He had to buy the pictures the artist wanted to sell him and accept as gifts those Munch offered him' (Rolf E. Stenersen, Edvard Munch - Close-Up of a Genius, Oslo, 2001, p. 168). By such means Stenersen acquired the largest single collection of Munch's work after the artist's own holdings.

In 1936 Stenersen presented large parts of his collection to his local municipality of Aker. This body of work is now housed in the purpose built Stenersen Museum, Oslo. Following World War II, as well as acquiring further works by Munch, he built up an important collection of works by major non-Norwegian painters. He acquired significant examples by Picasso, Miró, Kandinsky, Asger Jorn, Pierre Alechinsky and Victor Vasarely and formed a collection of more than forty works by Paul Klee. In 1971, Stenersen presented this further collection, totalling more than three hundred works, to the city of Bergen and set up the Stenersen Foundation in which to house them and where they are on view to this day. Three years later he presented his home, Villa Stenersen, designed by Arne Korsmo in 1936, to the Norwegian Government to use as an official residence.

During his aquaintance with Stenersen, Munch painted portraits of all the Stenersen family: Rolf in 1925-26, his wife Annie in 1934 and the Stenersen boys, Johan Martin and Sten (see lot 120). In each case he executed three or four related works, often approaching them in different media - oil, watercolour or lithograph. The works that relate to the following two lots from the Stenersen family are all in the Munch-museet, Oslo.  
   
Stenersen's seminal biography Edvard Munch - Close-up of a Genius has been re-published many times, and remains to this day the most personal first hand account of Munch's life and his often eccentric working habits. Other books that Stenersen wrote include Godnatt da du (Goodnight to You) a book of short stories and sketches - many inspired by Munch's pictures - published in 1931 and Stakkars Napoleon (Poor Napoleon) published in 1934.

The present portrait is the head study for the three-quarter length portrait of Rolf Stenersen that Munch painted in 1925-26 (fig. 1).

Munch was an ardent portraitist throughout his life and, like all portrait painters, he carried out commissions to make money, painting his sitters for financial gain. Painted full or half length, these successful businessmen and men of letters with their open gestures and relaxed poses, typically emit a debonair, self-confident swagger that suggests their elevated social status and financial security.

In certain instances, however, he chose to paint sitters because of their personal importance to him, retaining the likenesses of those who had special significance for him in his collection for the rest of his life. His completed portrait of Rolf Stenersen was one of these works, as Sue Prideaux describes: [a] 'series of portraits of the few friends, the dozen or so people, he would rely on for the rest of his life. He thought of them as his Guardians. Jens Thiis, Ludvig Ravensberg, Jappe Nilssen, Johannes Roede, Dr Lucien Dedichen, Helge Rode, Christian Gierløff and ... Ludvig Karsten. They would be joined by later Guardians when the anatomist K.E. Schreiner joined the ranks as personal physician, and also a young stockbroker and collector, Rolf Stenersen, who made himself indispensable over the management of money... "My soldiers, my warriors, my battalions, the Guardians of my art", stood watching over him... They were all men... He talked to them... They remained about him to the rest of his life; any visitor who caught site of a Guardian and asked if he might buy it would be made to feel insensitive and selfish...'  (Sue Prideaux, Edvard Munch, behind The Scream, 2005, pp. 267 & 268).

Although a successful stockbroker who did indeed advise Munch on his finances, it was because of the importance that Munch attached to his relationship with Stenersen that he plays down the sitter's material success in the present work, and presents him as a thinker. Like his treatment of the head of Dedichen in his study for the double portrait of Lucien Dedichen and Jappe Nilssen (fig. 2) painted in the same year, Munch emphasises Stenersen's prominent forehead. The back of the seat on which Stenersen sits suggests thought forms, a visionary aura that is further pronounced by his staring blue eyes that engage with the viewer and the tension suggested by the enclosed form of his upper body. As Munch reminded Stenersen some years after he had painted it: 'Remember the picture I painted of you back in 1925? The big one I have kept? I painted you as a poet. Come along and have a look at it' (Rolf E. Stenersen, Edvard Munch - Close-Up of a Genius, Oslo, 2001, p. 177).  

The result is a portrait of striking intensity, and one that is true to Munch's belief that 'The habit of painting women knitting and men reading must come to an end. I'm going to paint human beings who breathe and feel, love and suffer. People must comprehend the sanctity of what I am trying to do and take off their hats like in a church.'  

As one of his 'Guardian' paintings Munch retained the larger completed painting throughout his life (the work is now in the collection of the Munch-museet, Oslo). Munch did, however, part with the present oil which was acquired from him by Rolf Stenersen, and has remained in the possession of the Stenersen family ever since.

Fig. 1: Edvard Munch, Rolf E. Stenersen, 1925-26, Munch-museet, Oslo (digi ref: 402D06104)

Fig. 2: Edvard Munch, Lucien Dedichen, 1925-26, Private Collection (digi ref: 403D06104)