Edvard Munch, who was born 151 years ago today, is best known for The Scream, created in four unique versions (painted and pastel) between 1893 and 1910. But that one agonized figure set against a swirling blue landscape and fiery orange sky hardly begins to represent his body of work—in either its breadth or impact.
In fact, the art and life of Norwegian Expressionist Edvard Munch (1863-1944) has had a ripple effect in the art world, influencing many contemporary artists over the years. By re-using and translating Munch’s images, these artists have not only furthered their own practices but also helped redefine our understanding of Munch’s art.
Among those influenced by Munch was 20th-century artist Jasper Johns. During a crucial point in his career, Johns looked to Munch’s defining themes of love, sex, loss, and death, as well as to his innovative working methods, as sources of inspiration for his own work. Johns routed Munch’s art through a dense process of quotation, repetition, displacement, substitution, and elision to create new images while opening his work to themes and meanings shared with Munch.
The unlikely but compelling connection between the work of Johns and Munch is the subject of an exhibition opening at VMFA in the fall of 2016, after its debut at the Munch Museum in Oslo in the summer of 2016. The exhibition (title to be determined), which is organized by VMFA, runs November 19, 2016 – February 20, 2017.