In the Tretyakov Gallery opens large-scale exhibition of Edvard Munch

The exhibition of works by the world-famous Norwegian artist Edvard Munch will be presented on such a large scale in Russia in the halls of the Tretyakov Gallery’s historic building for the first time - the opening day will be held on April 15, and from April 17 to June 14 the exhibition will be open to the public.

The exhibition will feature over 120 exhibits, including 64 paintings and 37 graphic works, 14 author photographs, as well as memorial objects and documents from the Munch Museum in Oslo - the largest collection of the heritage of the famous master, one of the founders of expressionism.

In addition to the most awaited work - the earliest graphic version (1893) of the famous painting "The Scream" - the exposition included works from all the main cycles and series of the artist, to which he returned for many years. Among them are the "Dance of Life", "Kiss", "Madonna", "Girl on the Bridge", "Vampire", "Maturation" and others.
Despite the fact that the legacy of Munch is great, in the Russian museum collections his works are practically not represented. The exception is one pictorial and one graphic work in the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. Pushkin, where in 1960 and 1977 exhibitions of Munch's engravings were held, and in 1982, an exhibition of painting and graphics from the collections of several Norwegian museums was held in the Hermitage. Since then, Russia has not been able to show the works of the artist. The exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery is the first show of the work of an outstanding Norwegian artist to the modern Russian audience.

For the Tretyakov Gallery, Munch’s retrospective will be the first stage of a long-term “Scandinavian project,” which will include exhibitions by artists from Sweden and Finland.
The main theme of the current exhibition of Munch's works, which determined the most important trends in art, is the influence of Dostoevsky on the formation of the artist’s world outlook and creative thinking. Dostoevsky and Ibsen are Munch's favorite writers. The exhibition will feature books by a Russian writer from the artist’s personal library.

The exhibition is located on two floors of the Engineering Building of the gallery and includes several sections that are grouped thematically by the genres and types of Munch's art. The center of the exhibition is the cycle of paintings "The Frieze of Life", which the artist called "a poem about life, love and death," and has worked on it for over 30 years. This cycle includes the most iconic works, including "Cry", "Dance of Life", "Vampire", "Kiss" and others.