Frank Hoifodt

Best known as the artist behind one of the most iconic and recognised images in the world, "The Scream" (1893), Norwegian painter Edvard Munch (1863-1944) is a key figure in the development of painting in the twentieth century. The themes of desolation and despair behind his best-known works such as "The Sick Child" (1886), "Vampire" (1893-4) and "Ashes" (1894) resonated with those living in a new modernity, and acted as an influential precursor to the Expressionist movement in Europe. This accessible survey studies Munch's life and work, from his tragic childhood where he experienced the deaths of his mother and sister at a young age; to his travels in Europe during the emergence of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism; to his circle of friends including Henrik Ibsen; and his prolific body of work including etchings, woodcuts, lithographs and set designs. Including 60 full colour illustrations, this lucid and informative introduction is an indispensible guide to one of the most intriguing and dramatic figures in twentieth century art.

Scandinavia's most famous painter, the Norwegian Edvard Munch (1863-1944), is probably best known for his painting The Scream, a universally recognized icon of terror and despair. (A version of The Scream was stolen from the Edvard Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway, in August 2004, and has not yet been recovered.) But Munch considered himself a writer as well as a painter. Munch began painting as a teenager and, in his young adulthood, studied and worked in Paris and Berlin, where he evolved a highly personal style in paintings and works on paper. And in diaries that he kept for decades, he also experimented with reminiscence, fiction, prose portraits, philosophical speculations, and surrealism. Known as an artist who captured both the ecstasies and the hellish depths of the human condition, Munch conveys these emotions in his diaries but also reveals other facets of his personality in remarks and stories that are alternately droll, compassionate, romantic, and cerebral. This English translation of Edward Munch's private diaries, the most extensive edition to appear in any language, captures the eloquent lyricism of the original Norwegian text. The journal entries in this volume span the period from the 1880s, when Munch was in his twenties, until the 1930s, reflecting the changes in his life and his work. The book is illustrated with fifteen of Munch's drawings, many of them rarely seen before. Though excerpts from these diaries have been previously published elsewhere, no translation has captured the real passion and poetry of Munch's voice. This translation lets Munch speak for himself and evokes the primal passion of his diaries. J. Gill Holland's exceptional work adds a whole new level to our understanding of the artist and the depth of his scream.