Edvard Munch’s female influences

Munch was a true modernist both in his work and in his contemporary views on society. He once wrote: “No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting. I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love.”

The women who shaped him

When Edvard Munch was only five years old, his mother Laura Munch (1837–1868) died of tuberculosis. Her sister Karen Bjølstad (1839–1931) moved into the Munch family’s apartment in Norway's capital Kristiania (now Oslo) to take care of Edvard and his four brothers and sisters. In 1877, tragedy struck again when Edvard’s older sister Sofie also died of tuberculosis.

The woman who introduced Munch to art

Munch’s aunt Karen Bjølstad was herself an artist. She introduced Edvard Munch to the world of art when he was still a child.

Munch’s early artistic project would partly evolve from the sudden deaths of his mother and sister. In 1885, he began painting the first version of The Sick Child, which depicts his older sister Sofie and aunt Karen.

Female family members

Munch also portrayed the women in his family in good health, including his younger sister Inger Munch (1868–1952). Inger Munch was one of the first photographers to document the eight kilometre long Akerselva river that runs through Oslo.

In 1892, Munch finished the painting depicted here, Inger in Black and Violet.

The artist’s first love

In 1885, Edvard Munch experienced his first great love, when he met Milly Thaulow (1860–1937).

Even long after the relationship was over, Munch could not get Thaulow out of his mind. However, Thaulow did not reciprocate his emotions and she married another man. Munch was especially disappointed when she later divorced and remarried without showing interest in him. His disappointment would influence his relationship with women for the rest of his life.

Milly Thaulow would later be known as one of the first members of the Norwegian press to write about food and fashion.

In his work Dance of Life, painted in 1899–1900, Munch and Thaulow are depicted as the central couple in a jealousy drama.

Romance and drama

Around the turn of the century, Munch had a turbulent romantic relationship with Mathilde “Tulla” Larsen (1869–1942). In the late summer of 1902, their very last meeting took place in Munch’s house in the small seaside town of Åsgårdstrand. Munch was wounded in his left middle finger when a pistol allegedly accidentally discharged. Neither Larsen nor Munch were able to provide a satisfactory explanation of the event, and it is still not known what really happened. However, what is known is that Munch would thereafter work without the use of one of his joints for the rest of his life.

Although this 1899 photograph of Larsen and Munch does look like a portrait of a married couple, Munch never married.

In 1905, Munch painted Head by head, which depicts himself together with Larsen.

The girls in his summer retreat

The theme in the painting The Girls on the Bridge is central in Munch’s oeuvre and is featured in twelve editions of the work. Munch painted the first edition just after the turn of the century. The first edition is exhibited at The National Museum in Oslo. The motif is from the small seaside town Åsgårdstrand.

Flirtation and friendship

Munch’s relationships with women were typically brief, spontaneous first-time meetings followed by a lifelong fascination, more or less on both sides.

One of these women was Ingse Vibe (1886–1945) who is said to have caught Munch's attention by leaning over the wooden fence outside his house in Åsgårdstrand one day in 1903, when she was just 16 years old.

They cultivated a friendship that would last for decades. This relationship is documented through their preserved correspondence. One postcard is a photo of Ingse acting on stage at the National Theatre in Oslo that reads: “I wanted to send you a small greeting and show you how pretty I look when I’m a good girl. Yours, Ingse.”

Munch also frequently used Ingse as a model for his drawings and paintings.

Another postcard from Ingse Vibe to Edvard Munch, sent in 1907, shows that the notion that a woman could dress in a suit and sail a boat was alive in Norway more than a hundred years ago.

Madonna and the master

The Brooch is a 1903 lithograph depicting the English violinist Eva Mudocci (1883–1953), who was Munch’s lover. The motif is closely related to Munch’s key work Madonna. Mudocci also appears in two other works by Munch from the same year: The violin concert and Salome. Munch has been quoted as saying that Mudocci had “eyes of a thousand years” and once sent her a letter in which he wrote: “Here is the stone that has fallen from my heart.”

The portraits of women at Ekely in Oslo

Between 1916 and his death in 1944, Munch lived and worked in Ekely, a former market garden located in Oslo. Although numerous women visited his home and studio in Ekely to be portrayed, many of these artworks are less well known today.

One of Munch’s favourite models was Birgit Prestøe, who reversed the traditional roles of artist and model by describing Munch in this way: “I thought he was delightful to look at, beautiful as a young Apollo, wise as an ageing Zeus.” She modelled for several of Munch’s paintings and later became famous when she repeatedly allowed herself to be interviewed about her experiences as a model, a profession that at the time was often regarded as almost scandalous.

Munch first painted Birgit Prestøe in 1924.

Edvard Munch struggled with the dilemma between his passion for women and his fear of rejection throughout his life. He considered marriage to be incompatible with his artistic ambitions and remained unmarried until his death in 1944 at the age of 80.