“Edvard Munch Portraits” at the National Portrait Gallery

Show your Preferred card to enjoy complimentary entry to the exhibition.

The “strange Norwegian master,” as Robert Rosenblum once characterized Edvard Munch, produced thousands of works whose anguished expressionism — most famously in “The Scream” — evoked the anxieties and alienation of modern existence. Yet behind this pictorial melancholy, Munch enjoyed a wide circle of friends and contemporaries. This side of the largely self-taught symbolist forms the focus of the National Portrait Gallery’s new exhibition, which presents more than 40 portraits of Munch’s family, friends, patrons and bohemian peers. Some paintings, such as the artist’s depictions of the lawyer Thor Lütken and physicist Felix Auerbach, go on view in the United Kingdom for the first time.

The thematic and chronological survey begins with intimate family pictures from the 1880s and 1890s, some miniature in size, that reveal the outlines and influences of Munch’s upbringing. These give way to pictures of his avant-garde contemporaries — a group of artists, writers and anarchists whose presence supported his artistic development and helped to define his unmistakable expressionistic style. As Munch’s popularity increased, he began working on commissions, and the exhibition examines his close relationship with wealthy patrons in the early 20th century. These works, including the portrait of Auerbach, incorporate bright, bold colors that reflect the personalities of his sitters. Still, it’s well-known that Munch’s life was defined by loss, depression, fear and anxiety, and from 1905 to 1909, he spent time in various sanatoriums. The exhibition concludes with works that followed Munch’s recovery in a nerve clinic, after one significant episode of intense stress. Back home in Norway, it was a group of close friends he called his “Lifeguards” or “Guardians” who helped support him. Their arresting full-length portraits, which Munch refused to part with, came to act as substitutes for the men — enduring presences that anchored the artist through turmoil.

^{Edvard Munch, “Seated Model on the Couch, Birgit Prestøe,” 1924. © Munchmuseet. Photo: Munchmuseet/Sidsel de Jong}