London, at the National Portrait Gallery the first exhibition in the UK devoted to portraitist Munch

The National Portrait Gallery in London will host from March 13 to June 15, 2025, the exhibition Edvard Munch Portraits, curated by Alison Smith (former chief curator of the National Portrait Gallery and current director of collections and research at the Wallace Collection), which is intended to be the first exhibition in the United Kingdom devoted exclusively to Munch as a portrait painter. The aim, then, is to offer visitors a glimpse into the way Edvard Munch created portraits both on commission and for personal reasons. Contrary to the conventional image of Munch as an isolated and tormented artist, the exhibition aims to present him as a social figure, capable of cultivating a wide network of contacts in Scandinavia and Northern Europe.

Featuring more than forty works from major international museums and private collections, the exhibition will be structured thematically and chronologically, guiding the public through four sections that will explore Munch’s relationships with his family, radical bohemian circles, patrons and collectors, and, finally, his closest friends.

Visitors will discover early portraits of Munch’s family members, made between the 1880s and 1890s. These intimate paintings, often done on small sheets of paper and in a naturalistic style, introduce key themes that recur throughout the artist’s output. Evening (1888), for example, depicts his sister Laura on a family vacation, a year before she was permanently hospitalized for schizophrenia. This work captures the sense of alienation and foreshadows the Symbolist style that Munch would develop in later years. Another significant work is Andreas Munch Studying Anatomy (1886), which reveals the artist’s abiding interest in medicine and the theme of mortality, present throughout his career.

After moving to study art in the mid-1880s, Munch entered the bohemian scene in Kristiania (present-day Oslo), a lively environment populated by artists and writers with international connections. Prominent among them was the anarchist Hans Jaeger, whose portrait will dominate this section of the exhibition. Munch’s interactions with bohemian circles in Kristiania, Paris and Berlin were crucial to his artistic development, as they pushed him toward a more expressive language. In Berlin, Munch met Polish playwright Stanisław Przybyszewski, author of the monograph Das Werk des Edvard Munch (1894), the first publication that helped promote the artist internationally. A particularly interesting work in this section will be the portrait of the lawyer Thor Lütken, never before exhibited in the United Kingdom: close examination reveals how the subject’s sleeve, on the lower edge, is transformed into a moonscape inhabited by two mysterious figures, symbols of love and death.

The third section will explore the connection between Munch and his patrons and collectors. At the beginning of the 20th century, Munch was one of the most widely exhibited artists in Europe. Returning to Berlin in 1902, he received support from wealthy collectors who further increased his fame. During this period, the painter began to make commissioned portraits, adopting bright, vivid colors to reflect the personalities of his subjects. Prominent among these is the portrait of German physicist Felix Auerbach (1906), painted in a way that almost seems to converse with the viewer. Another notable example is The Brooch (1902), a lithograph depicting the sensuous yet mysterious violinist Eva Mudocci. After a nervous breakdown in 1908, Munch was admitted to a neurological clinic in Copenhagen. There, he painted intense colors a portrait of Dr. Daniel Jacobson, depicting him in a powerful pose inspired by Hans Holbein’s portraits of Henry VIII.

The last section of the exhibition celebrates Munch’s final return to Norway, supported by a circle of friends, artists and patrons. Among the most significant works are full-length portraits of Jappe Nilssen, painter Ludvig Karsten and writer Christian Gierløff, whom Munch considered so important that he never wanted to part with them and who served as substitutes for real people when he was not in their company. This section will also highlight Munch’s recurring models, such as Birgit Prestøe in Model Sitting on the Couch (1924) and Sultan Abdul Karem in Model with Green Scarf, the only non-European subject portrayed by the artist.

“Throughout his life, Munch sought to delve behind the masks of those he portrayed, using expressive paintings to reveal inner feelings and motivations. This exhibition offers a unique opportunity to appreciate his work as a portraitist both in terms of his personal relationships with his models and how he portrayed them,” said curator Alison Smith.

The exhibition is supported by AKO Foundation, Viking and the Asbjorn Lunde Foundation.

London, at the National Portrait Gallery the first exhibition in the UK devoted to portraitist Munch

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