Edvard Munch

Acquired by the family of the present owner prior to 1939

Gerd Woll, Edvard Munch, Complete Paintings, Catalogue raisonné, vol. III, London & New York, 2008, no. 1271, illustrated p. 1167 (with the measurements 58 by 72 cm)

Original canvas. Under ultra-violet light, there is one slight retouch or balanced area in the left ankle of the larger nude, a couple of small spots of retouching in the lower left corner above the foot and three small retouches in the upper right background, but they are most likely cosmetic and do not address any real damage. This painting is in very good condition.
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The several young women who came and went through Munch's life in the years following World War I inspired some of his most sensuous compositions.  After previous tumultuous romantic relationships Munch now publicly embraced chastity, professing to friends that he regarded women simply "like beautiful flowers, carefully smelling their perfume while leaving their petals intact."  His words bore little relation to his life, which was populated by an ever-changing cast of live-in models, many of whom became his lovers.  Truer to Munch's own reality were his series of paintings from 1917-18 of female nudes, often depicted in pairs.   Hints of erotic exchange are evident in these pictures, including the present work, where one woman appears to be lounging on a bed in the presence of her attentive companion.

One of Munch's models during this time was Annie Fjeldbu, known by the moniker "The Cat."  According to Sue Prideaux, the twenty-one-year-old Annie "was a ballet dancer and a singer and she inspired expressive, energetic storm-tossed nudes painted so freely they look as if they are huge watercolours but in fact they are very loose oils" (S. Prideaux, Edvard Munch, Behind the Scream, New Haven & London, 2005, p. 298).  With its splashy, colorful brushwork, the present oil is a vivid example of the undercurrents of eroticism influencing Munch's work of this period.