Erik Mørstad – författare

This anthology springs out of a productive environment that in recent years has been created in Norway for research into the art of Edvard Munch. Comprising scholars from both the University of Oslo and the Munch Museum, this environment seeks to internationalize the research and broadening the network of scholars working on Munch's art. The nine essays written by art historians from the US, Germany, Switzerland, and Norway shed new light upon different sides of Munch and his art, as well as on the impact he has had in art history. The authors in this anthology are more critical of their sources than has been seen earlier in research on Munch, and their interpretations of works are increasingly based on information that can be documented. A diversity of theory now supplements the traditionally biographical approach. One of the authors describes the process of identifying a formerly unknown Munch painting, Seated Nude and Three Male Heads, as well as addressing general problems of dating concerning Munch's oeuvres. In another essay, it is argued that Munch and his works have often been better comprehended by other artists than by traditional art historians. The essay shows how certain artists - most of them American such as Jim Dine, Andres Serrano, and Elizabeth Jones - have appropriated and developed Munch's pictorial imagination, in independent works or in visual quotations.

Christian Krohg was a key figure in the Norwegian art community of the 1880s and 1890s, and was strongly influenced by the ideology of realism. In his view, art should have meaning for a broad segment of the population, not merely serve as wall decorations for the bourgeoisie. Three types of motifs were recurrent themes for Krohg during this period: the working-class hero, scenes from family life and "the fallen woman". Many people responded to his literary and visual representations of the poverty-stricken girl Albertine. He depicted members of the working class with great sympathy in paintings such as Errand Boy Drinking Coffee and Woman Cutting Bread. The Gaihede family, fishermen from Skagen in Denmark, are portrayed in many everyday situations, as are members of Krohg's own family. The catalogue sheds light on the subject matter of the exhibition, Krohg's period of study in Berlin and its impact on him, his relationship with Georg Brandes, the novel Albertine and Krohg's own use of photography as a model for his work and a medium.Text in English and Norwegian.