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Lot Essay
From the beginning of the 1890s Munch's art took on a new, more emblematic character. Henceforth, his paintings, prints, and drawings strove to represent elemental subjects, themes of love and death and inner moods set free from the constraints of external references. This new path led to the exhibitions of Munch's Frieze of Life project, a collection of some fifty images which dealt with various emotional and psychological moods many of which were frequently mournful and brooding in atmosphere, often portraying differing types of trauma. Although some of the stages of the Frieze suggest an autobiographical reading--Death in Sickroom, The Kiss, Jealousy, Despair--the cycle was meant by the artist to be admired as an organic whole and without specific references to time, person or place.
Included in Munch’s Frieze of Life cycle is the artist’s lithograph titled Das Weib (Woman) (the present lot). Here the artist traces the central twin themes of the Frieze--the arc of love and death--through the three female figures: the innocent figure at the right dressed in white, the nude seductress at the center, and the lonely figure at the left, with an almost skeleton face and dressed in black.
In 1898, Munch commenced a relationship with Tulla Larsen, the beautiful daughter of a wealthy Kristiania wine merchant. The artist often drew on his relationship with her; here as muse for the three figures. Tulla seemed set on marriage and there were plans made for a ceremony, although Munch later denied having played any role. Their tumultuous affair ended in 1902 with gunfire and the loss of part of the artist's finger. For Munch, Tulla seems to have represented the role of an 'earth mother,' a primal force of nature symbolizing life and death.
Included in Munch’s Frieze of Life cycle is the artist’s lithograph titled Das Weib (Woman) (the present lot). Here the artist traces the central twin themes of the Frieze--the arc of love and death--through the three female figures: the innocent figure at the right dressed in white, the nude seductress at the center, and the lonely figure at the left, with an almost skeleton face and dressed in black.
In 1898, Munch commenced a relationship with Tulla Larsen, the beautiful daughter of a wealthy Kristiania wine merchant. The artist often drew on his relationship with her; here as muse for the three figures. Tulla seemed set on marriage and there were plans made for a ceremony, although Munch later denied having played any role. Their tumultuous affair ended in 1902 with gunfire and the loss of part of the artist's finger. For Munch, Tulla seems to have represented the role of an 'earth mother,' a primal force of nature symbolizing life and death.