Edvard Munch

Acquired from the artist by the family of the present owner in the late 1920s

Modum, Blaafarveværket, Sommeren med Edvard Munch og Arne Kavli, 1999, no. 27

Gerd Woll, Edvard Munch, Complete Paintings,Catalogue Raisonné 1898-1908, vol. II,  London, 2009, no. 596, illustrated in colour p. 615

The canvas is lined. There is scattered retouching throughout the composition, some of which is old and has discoloured. Apart from some slight craquelure in the thicker areas of impasto, this work is in stable condition. Colours: Overall fairly accurate in the printed catalogue illustration, although slightly richer in the original.
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Painted circa 1904-1905, Hus i Borre presents a view of the coastal landscape around Borre, which occupied an important place in Munch’s art. The municipality of Borre lay along the coast from Åsgårdstrand, a resort a few miles to the south of Oslo, which Munch first visited in autumn of 1888. He took a holiday residence there in the summer of 1889, which he rented for some years until he purchased a house in 1897. In the following years, Munch travelled widely across Europe, making extended visits to Berlin, Paris and Hamburg, but often returned to Åsgårdstrand during the summer months. He painted some of his best landscapes there, characterised by his expressive winding line and strong, vivid colours.

Having visited Paris in 1903 and the early months of 1904, Munch was certainly deeply impressed by the Fauve artists, whose vividly coloured canvases he would have seen there. During these extensive European travels, however, Munch regularly returned the Borre region, fascinated by the Norwegian landscape and seeking to express its mood and atmosphere through colour and line. Munch's landscapes of this period had a strong influence on German Expressionist painters, who had the opportunity to see his works in several exhibitions in Germany between 1905 and 1908. The brilliant, wild palette that dominated Munch's canvases had a powerful impact on the Brücke artists who were eager to move away from their urban surroundings in Berlin and other cities, and to embrace the more 'primitive' life-style and wild nature of the northern German coast. It was the daring, expressive power of Munch's landscapes, pulsating with undulating lines and vivid, dramatic brush-strokes, that had such a profound effect on some of the major figures of twentieth century art including Kirchner, Schmidt-Rottluff, Pechstein and Heckel.