The Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art presents an exhibition of Prints by Edvard Munch on view through April 30, 2011.
The Norwegian artist Edvard Munch (1863–1944) is world-famous for his evocative depictions of universal human emotions and experiences––love, attraction, separation, and death. His widely reproduced painting, The Scream, captures in expressive brushwork the anxious psyche of modern man, overwhelmed by his perceptions of a cruel or indifferent world. Equally adept in printmaking as in paint, Munch exploited the directness of graphic media to intensify his artistic statements. An innovator in etching, woodcut, and lithography, Munch frequently reworked themes he explored in prior paintings and prints, simplifying forms almost to the point of abstraction and distilling his narrative to pure symbolism. His prints are often unique impressions, as Munch altered his inking from one sheet to the next in search of varied emotive possibilities from the same matrix.
