Lot Essay
In May 1909 Munch returned to Norway after spending several years abroad and settled down in an old manor house, 'Skrubben', in Kragerø, deep on the south coast of Norway. His return to his home country was greeted with enthusiasm and respect: "He is a man who has very little desire to please the public. He says what he wants to say in a wonderfully free and bold way...He never shows us the banalities of nature. With his strange and sensitive mind, using his own deeply expressive colours, he shows us how he, Edvard Munch, sees and above all feels...Now that Munch has returned home after so many years abroad, we should remember one thing: it pays to make way for the best" (K. A. Kleppe, Bergens Tidende, 9 June 1909, p. 169).
Dorfstrasse Kragerø is one of three views of the same street which Munch painted between approximately 1911 and 1913. The other two paintings are housed in the Munch Museum, Oslo. An extant photograph, taken in 1911, shows Munch painting one of the Oslo works (see illustration) . The photograph was reproduced in the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet in April 1912 (see illustration). Arne Eggum and Petra Pettersen of the Munch Museum reason that, taking these factors into account and the likelihood that Munch painted all three Kragerø paintings at around the same time, Dorfstrasse Kragerø can be given a date of 1911 to 1913. It is also possible that the present work was exhibited as number fifty-two in a show mounted at the Dioramalokalet, Oslo in April 1911 under the title 'Houses and Small Girls (Kragerø)'. Munch may well have added his signature and dating of 1913 to the canvas at a later date, as he was wont to do with several of his works.
Munch's profound influence on German art during this period is widely acknowledged. On 7 January 1903 the influential critic Hermann Bahr wrote in the Österreichische Volkszeitung that "Munch would soon be traced everywhere in the development of German art". Munch first attracted great attention in Germany in 1892 when he was invited to exhibit at the Verein der Berliner Künstler. The exhibition was closed after just six days due to the controversy caused by his works. Undeterred, Munch spent many months in Berlin between 1892 and 1899. In 1904 Munch signed two contracts; one with Bruno Cassirer in Berlin and the other with Galerie Commeter in Hamburg, the first contract was for his prints, the second for his paintings. Thereafter Munch's international reputation was entirely dependant upon these German dealers and his general popularity in Germany.
Between 1910 and 1918 Munch exhibited in Berlin eleven times, in Oslo eight times and in numerous other European capitals. The painterly approach and high key palette of Dorfstrasse Kragerø reveal the close affinities between Munch and the younger German Expressionist artists before the First World War. They openly declared their admiration for the older artist. In 1919 Pechstein wrote "wir erkannten unser gleiches Sehnen, unsere gleiche Begeisterung für die gesehenen Van Goghs und Munchs...für letzteren war Kirchner begeistert" (see A. Eggum, 'Brücke og Edvard Munch', Die Brücke - Edvard Munch, exh. cat., Malmö, 1979, p. 17), Schmidt-Rottluff wrote "Diese Munchs...beschäftigen mich noch stark, lange nicht so die Liebermänner, so fein auch einige waren. Aber die Munchs, die Munchs, das war doch mächtig" (op. cit.,, p. 19).
Munch chose to keep Dorfstrasse Kragerø until at least 1927, as it was in this year that he photographed the painting in the garden of his country estate at Ekely. The work was acquired by Niels Onstad who later married the celebrated Norwegain ice-skater and Hollywood actress Sonja Henie. In 1968 the couple founded the Henie-Onstad Kunstsenter in Høvikodden, as a showcase of twentieth-century art.
We are extremely grateful to Arne Eggum and Petra Pettersen of the Munch Museum, Oslo, for their help in compiling this catalogue entry.
Dorfstrasse Kragerø is one of three views of the same street which Munch painted between approximately 1911 and 1913. The other two paintings are housed in the Munch Museum, Oslo. An extant photograph, taken in 1911, shows Munch painting one of the Oslo works (see illustration) . The photograph was reproduced in the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet in April 1912 (see illustration). Arne Eggum and Petra Pettersen of the Munch Museum reason that, taking these factors into account and the likelihood that Munch painted all three Kragerø paintings at around the same time, Dorfstrasse Kragerø can be given a date of 1911 to 1913. It is also possible that the present work was exhibited as number fifty-two in a show mounted at the Dioramalokalet, Oslo in April 1911 under the title 'Houses and Small Girls (Kragerø)'. Munch may well have added his signature and dating of 1913 to the canvas at a later date, as he was wont to do with several of his works.
Munch's profound influence on German art during this period is widely acknowledged. On 7 January 1903 the influential critic Hermann Bahr wrote in the Österreichische Volkszeitung that "Munch would soon be traced everywhere in the development of German art". Munch first attracted great attention in Germany in 1892 when he was invited to exhibit at the Verein der Berliner Künstler. The exhibition was closed after just six days due to the controversy caused by his works. Undeterred, Munch spent many months in Berlin between 1892 and 1899. In 1904 Munch signed two contracts; one with Bruno Cassirer in Berlin and the other with Galerie Commeter in Hamburg, the first contract was for his prints, the second for his paintings. Thereafter Munch's international reputation was entirely dependant upon these German dealers and his general popularity in Germany.
Between 1910 and 1918 Munch exhibited in Berlin eleven times, in Oslo eight times and in numerous other European capitals. The painterly approach and high key palette of Dorfstrasse Kragerø reveal the close affinities between Munch and the younger German Expressionist artists before the First World War. They openly declared their admiration for the older artist. In 1919 Pechstein wrote "wir erkannten unser gleiches Sehnen, unsere gleiche Begeisterung für die gesehenen Van Goghs und Munchs...für letzteren war Kirchner begeistert" (see A. Eggum, 'Brücke og Edvard Munch', Die Brücke - Edvard Munch, exh. cat., Malmö, 1979, p. 17), Schmidt-Rottluff wrote "Diese Munchs...beschäftigen mich noch stark, lange nicht so die Liebermänner, so fein auch einige waren. Aber die Munchs, die Munchs, das war doch mächtig" (op. cit.,, p. 19).
Munch chose to keep Dorfstrasse Kragerø until at least 1927, as it was in this year that he photographed the painting in the garden of his country estate at Ekely. The work was acquired by Niels Onstad who later married the celebrated Norwegain ice-skater and Hollywood actress Sonja Henie. In 1968 the couple founded the Henie-Onstad Kunstsenter in Høvikodden, as a showcase of twentieth-century art.
We are extremely grateful to Arne Eggum and Petra Pettersen of the Munch Museum, Oslo, for their help in compiling this catalogue entry.