AshehougAgency

Edvard Munch. The Artist and the Man

Penetrating Munch’s art is like leafing through a gripping, graphic diary. His life is reflected in his pictures, as Ragna Stang says in her book. In text and pictures she follows Edvard Munch, the man, from his angst-ridden childhood, through the stormy teenage years, illness and crisis, persecuted by many and defended by few, until he died at Ekely, a world-famous figure.

Lonely as he was, he saw it as his consummate goal to touch people. According to one of the author’s theories, this turned his work into a long series of confessions, which today enables that same work to reach out to people across all national frontiers

The book offers a well documented opportunity to follow Munch from year to year, to get to know the ambit of his painting, his thoughts and reflections; to become familiar with the person as a whole. The book is aimed at the wider art-loving public, and is therefore written in a popular style without obscuring important nuances. Though the book was written in 1977, it is still very much a classic among Munch biographies.

Publisher: H. Aschehoug & Co (W. Nygaard) 1977
ISBN: 82-03-09045-1
317 pages, hardcover
Norwegian title: Edvard Munch. Mennesket og kunstneren
Translation rights sold: Danish, Spanish, Swedish, American, German and Japanese