Press Release
For Immediate Release
London | +44 (0)20 7293 6000 | Matthew Floris | [email protected]
Mitzi Mina | [email protected]
‘Studies in The Human Condition’
Sotheby’s To Sell Important Group of Prints by
Edvard Munch
Edvard Munch's graphic works are among the artist's most powerful images, revered for their
haunting summation of the human condition. On 16 September 2014, Sotheby's will present an
important group in a London auction of Prints & Multiples. The 11 prints comprise a selection of
woodcuts, lithographs and etchings, and demonstrate Munch's experimentation with a variety of
graphic media. Each work embodies a different emotional and psychological tone, the result of
Munch's use of various techniques and combinations of colours to express mood and elicit
emotional responses in the viewer. The 10 lots are estimated to bring a combined total in excess of
£1,000,000.
Séverine Nackers, Sotheby’s Head of Prints, Europe, comments: “The demand from collectors
worldwide for prints by Edvard Munch continues unabated. For our September sale, we have
secured a superb group, including two works from a private Scandinavian collection.* Munch laid
bare raw human emotion in his imagery, and as an innovative printmaker, he produced works that
still resonate with us more than a century later. Although many of Munch's prints were based on
paintings, he did not rework the same themes with an aim of reproducing his painted images.
Instead, he worked on his painting and printmaking in tandem, the technical features of one media
informing his explorations in the other."
1
Leading the group is Two Human Beings. The Lonely Ones, a subject which stands out in Munch's
body of work in all media for the artist's deliberate and unusual use of black and grey (illustrated on
page 1). The Lonely Ones (1899) exists in one of the widest variety of different colour
combinations, some impressions with as many as eight colours. This print, estimated at £250,000350,000, appears to be the only known impression in black and grey in private hands. The Munch
Museum has only one similar impression that is comparable in quality and colouration. The
coolness of the inks used here evokes a sense of stark isolation; the woodcut’s simplicity and
effects of contrast enhance the potency of the subject.
Munch printed approximately 20 proofs of Moonlight I
(1896) in similar colour variations; the range of the amount
of ink used and the shifting prominence of the image or the
wood grain make each individual print unique. For his
woodcuts, Munch exclusively chose blocks of wood sawn
lengthwise. In this impression, estimated at £150,000250,000, the subtle interplay between the cut lines of the
subject and the structure of the wood grain, most
importantly in the woman's face, show Munch at the height
of his graphic powers.
Munch exerted careful control over the printing of one-off impressions after the initial pull from a
copperplate, lithographic stone or wood block, and he obsessed over their maintenance, storage
and transport. In two variants of his highly controversial lithograph Madonna, it is evident how he
developed the subject over time, between 1895 and 1913, and changed the drawing in order to
distinguish later impressions.
The first, estimated at £100,000-150,000,
shows the composition in the early state,
printed in black, a frame on three sides
populated with swimming spermatozoa and
a foetus in the lower left corner (illustrated
far left). The second, also estimated at
£100,000-150,000, shows the final state, now
printed in four colours, with the border
masked out by the printing process and long
strands of hair at her hips comprising the
new drawing (illustrated left). The fourth
colour, an olive-green tone, suggests an otherworldly appearance in the woman's form. The
radiating halo-like lines following her contour now seem to end in the new tendrils of hair at her
lower torso. Munch has shifted the symbolic nuance from the physical in the earlier print to the
spiritual in the later version, underscoring his ability to change the mood and emotion of his
2
subjects with subtle changes. Munch spoke of the subject as ‘The woman who abandons herself –
and acquires the painful beauty of a Madonna’ (quoted on page 62 in Edvard Munch: 50 Graphic
Works from the Gundersen Collection).
Munch was heavily involved in the printing process of his graphic works
and while he printed many experimental impressions himself, he also
chose to work with the most renowned printers in Paris and Berlin at the
time. The intaglio prints Consolation (1894, estimate £15,000-25,000) and
The Kiss (1895, estimate £70,000-90,000, illustrated left) are both fine
impressions, with expressively wiped shadows that allowed for a wide
range of variation from print to print. Munch also controlled the mood
through his choice of different kinds of paper, varying the weight and
texture to produce different ink absorption effects.
FURTHER HIGHLIGHTS
Encounter in Space
Woodcut, 1898-99
Estimate: £80,000-120,000
Woman’s Head Against the Shore
Woodcut, 1899
Estimate: £150,000-250,000
Man and Woman
Woodcut, 1899
Estimate: £90,000-100,000
Consolation
Lithograph, 1895-1902
Estimate: £15,000-25,000
#
#
#
3
*The Kiss (estimate £70,000-90,000) and Consolation (estimate £15,000-20,000), Property from a Private Scandinavian
Collection.
FOR MORE NEWS FROM SOTHEBY’S
Visit: www.sothebys.com/en/inside/services/press/news/news.html
Follow: www.twitter.com/sothebys & www.weibo.com/sothebyshongkong & WeChat (ID: sothebyshongkong)
Join: www.facebook.com/sothebys
Watch: www.youtube.com/sothebys
Sotheby’s has been uniting collectors with world-class works of art since 1744. Sotheby’s became the first international
auction house when it expanded from London to New York (1955), the first to conduct sales in Hong Kong (1973), India
(1992) and France (2001), and the first international fine art auction house in China (2012). Today, Sotheby’s presents
auctions in nine different salesrooms, including New York, London, Hong Kong and Paris, and Sotheby’s BidNow
program allows visitors to view all auctions live online and place bids from anywhere in the world. Sotheby’s offers
collectors the resources of Sotheby’s Financial Services, the world’s only full-service art financing company, as well as
private sale opportunities in more than 70 categories, including S|2, the gallery arm of Sotheby's Contemporary Art
department, and two retail businesses, Sotheby’s Diamonds and Sotheby’s Wine. Sotheby’s has a global network of 90
offices in 40 countries and is the oldest company listed on the New York Stock Exchange (BID).
Images are available upon request
All catalogues are available online at www.sothebys.com or through Sotheby’s Catalogue iPad App.
4