Media Contact:
Erin R. Firestone, Manager of Marketing and PR
609.258.3767; [email protected]
January 22, 2014
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
EDVARD MUNCH: SYMBOLISM IN PRINT OPENS AT
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY ART MUSEUM FEB. 8, 2014
Exhibition presents works by one of the most influential artists
and printmakers of the modern era
PRINCETON, NJ--- Norwegian artist Edvard Munch (1863–1944) is considered one of the most
emotionally powerful and personal painters in art history. In addition to his celebrated
paintings—including his most recognized composition, The Scream (1893)—Munch is among
the greatest printmakers of the modern era, renowned for his innovative techniques across all
major print media. A selection of the artist’s most arresting works on paper will be on view in
Edvard Munch: Symbolism in Print, Masterworks from the Museum of Modern Art, New York at
the Princeton University Art Museum from Feb. 8 through June 8, 2014.
The 26 etchings, lithographs and woodcuts in the exhibition reflect on the artist’s
formative years as a printmaker and are arranged according to the techniques that Munch
explored, from his first etchings and drypoints made in Berlin in 1893, to his triumphant
exhibition of the Frieze of Life painting cycle at the Berlin Secession of 1902. Collaborating with
some of the finest printers in Berlin and Paris, Munch created graphic variations on his bestknown painted compositions, which presented universal themes of the anxieties of life,
sexuality and death, distilled from memories of his own troubled past.
“The visual intensity of these prints plumbs depths that may be even greater than
Munch’s paintings due to the nature and immediacy of his graphic achievement,” said Museum
Director James Steward. “His profound connection with audiences over the last century is a
testament to his ability to fuse our shared human experiences with his own expressive vision.”
Edvard Munch: Symbolism in Print traces the artist’s progression through various
printmaking techniques as his experimental graphic style evolved. Among the highlights in the
exhibition are two versions of The Kiss: one a provocative etching and drypoint in which two
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lovers meld into one iconic figure; the second a nearly abstract color woodcut version of the
same composition, coarsely carved and printed from a weathered pine board. The lithographs
Anxiety and Death in the Sick Room (both 1896) capture, respectively, the anonymity of modern
life and the inevitability of death in bold compositions evocative of the woodcut techniques
fashionable in Parisian Art Nouveau circles of the time. Munch’s search for new graphic means
to refine pictorial themes is found in Madonna and Vampire II (both 1895–1902), works that
unusually combine lithography with color woodcut to depict contrasting states of carnal love.
A poetic master who bridged late 19th-century Symbolism and early 20th-century
Expressionism, Munch was strongly influenced by the styles of two earlier artists: the
heightened emotional timbre of Vincent van Gogh and the vibrant color and symbolic forms of
Paul Gauguin, whose Tahitian-inspired Noa Noa woodcuts from 1894 provided inspiration for
Munch’s own innovative development as a printmaker. Yet while Gauguin’s woodcuts evoked
an imagined Polynesian idyll, Munch turned his focus inward, as the artist prophetically
declared in his St. Cloud Manifesto (1890), written four years before he discovered printmaking:
I painted the lines and colors that impinged on my inner eye. I painted from memory,
adding nothing and omitting the details that I no longer had before my eyes . . . I
painted the impressions of my childhood. The troubled colors of a bygone day.
In this way, Munch might incarnate better than any other artist the tenets of
Symbolism, which began in the 1880s as a literary movement in Paris and whose proponents
argued that art should reject rational naturalism and move beyond physical reality to embrace
the imagination, dreams and freedom from artistic convention. In so doing, Munch was an
instrumental forerunner of the interest in psychological exploration to be found in 20th-century
Expressionism. His vividly haunting images have resonated for generations and continue to do
so in the 21st century.
Edvard Munch: Symbolism in Print is organized by the Museum of Modern Art’s Deborah
Wye, Chief Curator Emerita, and Starr Figura, the Phyllis Ann and Walter Borten Associate
Curator of Prints and Illustrated Books. In Princeton the exhibition is curated by Calvin Brown,
Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Princeton University Art Museum.
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About the Princeton University Art Museum
Founded in 1882, the Princeton University Art Museum is one of the leading university
art museums in the country. From the founding gift of a collection of porcelain and pottery, the
collections have grown to over 92,000 works of art that range from ancient to contemporary art
and concentrate geographically on the Mediterranean regions, Western Europe, China, the
United States and Latin America.
Committed to advancing Princeton’s teaching and research missions, the Art Museum
serves as a gateway to the University for visitors from around the world. The Museum is
intimate in scale yet expansive in scope, offering a respite from the rush of daily life, a
revitalizing experience of extraordinary works of art and an opportunity to delve deeply into
the study of art and culture.
The Princeton University Art Museum is located at the heart of the Princeton campus, a
short walk from the shops and restaurants of Nassau Street. Admission is free. Museum hours
are Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.;
and Sunday 1 to 5 p.m. The Museum is closed Mondays and major holidays.
Please direct image requests to Erin Firestone, manager of marketing and public relations,
Princeton University Art Museum, at (609) 258-3767 or [email protected].