Cathy's Art Diary

Surprising exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery of portraits by Munch. I say surprising as it was relatively cheerful. Munch’s expressionist work can feel quite full on and miserable but I got sense of friendship and communities. The works were arranged by how he knew the sitter with sections on family, Bohemians, dealers and collectors and supporters. There was a sense of sadness though, bordering on the comical as you read the labels and many of the sitters died young or were involved in other tragedies. The bold colours struck you and in the enclosed space particularly in the end room of full length works you felt you were walking among a group of friends. I will moan though about the placement of some of the room labels and some pictures in the spaces between displays which had been created. There wasn’t enough space for people to stop and read and it created bottle necks particularly at the busy members’ preview I attended. Closes 15 June 2025 Reviews Times ...

Surprising exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery of work by Edvard Munch collected by Rasmus Meyer. I say surprising as often I have come out of Munch exhibitions with a sense of gloom but this show had a number of cheerful pictures! Meyer was an early collector of Munch’s work and so there was a fascinating selection of his early work which was quite impressionistic and colourful. “Spring Day on Karl Johan” from 1890 was an almost pointillist work with ethereal figures. We then moved onto some of the more experimental works for Munch proposed projects called “The Frieze”. Meyer recognised the importance of this idea and bought a number of the works which were here. There was also another picture of Karl Johan Street from 1892 which was very different to the earlier one. In this he records felling emotionally overwhelmed by a crowd. The final section showed later works following a nervous breakdown in 1908 which were shockingly different as they were cheerful and bright again! The...

Insightful online lecture from Stella Grace Lyons on the life and work of Edvard Munch. Stella began by posing the question of whether Munch’s portrayal as a troubled artist was a correct one and then went on to prove it definitely was. She started by using some of his 70 plus self-portraits to look at his life from the death of his mother and sister when he was young, thought various love affairs to the reclusive end of his life. She then went on to look at his pictures of other people which are studies of form and emotion with heart warming titles like “Despair”, “Ashes” and “Love and Pain” and broadened into talking about him as a symbolist.   She ended by looking at the evolution of his most famous work “The Scream” from 1892 which we tend to think of as a work created in an artistic frenzy but it evolved from earlier drawings and from works like the attached. She discussed whether the figure was meant to me him, his sister who was committed or a universal image of crisis...

Depressing exhibition at the British Museum looking at the work of Edvard Munch focusing on his prints from 1890-1918. I really wanted to like this and engage with it but all the images were so depressing. It definitely provided more angst than love. I felt quite fed up when I came out and needed coffee and cake. I liked the way it was arranged in a circle by the city he was living in with displays radiating out from a showings of contemporary film of that city. It also included work by other artists to emphasis the fact that Munch was reflecting contemporary themes but it took me a while to realise this and thought all the works were by him. Maybe emphasising this a bit more on the labels might have helped. The show was very good at describing the technical production of different types of print and Munch seemed to have worked in many print mediums but this made the show a bit stolid. I did like seeing various versions of a print alongside the plate which had made the...

Interesting exhibition at the Van Goh Museum in Amsterdam comparing the art of Munch and Van Gogh which shared many stylist themes although they never met. Both artists were inspired by similar artists who had painted traditional themes and both their first famous works, The Potato Eaters for Van Gogh and Morning for Munch drew on this tradition. They were both in Paris at about the same time and it was interesting to see how they each drew on what was happening around them and to see other works that were contemporary to their time there such as a beautiful scene from a balcony by Caillebotte. Both had also worked on the idea of pictures forming a decorative programme, Van Gogh with his pictures for the Yellow House and Munch’s Frieze of Life, and the top floor had AV displays which recreated these and you realised how many of the pictures from them you had seen in the show. There were some interesting hangings of similar pictures together to gently let your eye draw...

Interesting exhibition at the Pompidou Centre which looking at how new media like photography and film influenced the work of Edvard Munch. The early rooms looked at how Munch set about reproducing his work. It looked at a series of themes which he revisited many times in his left. The first two rooms seemed almost identical but were the same hang of dfferent versions of about 6 works. There were then rooms on film and a wonderful picture called “Workers on their way home” which took a cinematic approach to a group of workers walking towards you. The whole exhibition was dotted with photographs and film taken by Munch to show how he used the new forms. I have to be critical of the way the exhibition was hung and used. The rooms were quite small and there were large groups of school children being lectured to in there. At times a group would practically fill a room and made it very difficult for other people to view the works. I knew very little about this artist and came away better i...