WORK #5 (WORKS ON PAPER COLLECTION)
Edvard Munch, Two People - The Lonely Ones, 1899.
Woodcut.
All images © Whitworth Art Gallery, The University of Manchester.
INTRODUCTION:
This year is the 150th anniversary of Edvard Munch's birth. In Oslo Munch 150 - a celebration of Edvard Munch's work and significance - is taking place. It features the most comprehensive Munch exhibition ever, showing 250 works spanning his entire career. As a former art student, I was exposed to the Norwegian early on. His instantly recognisable - even omnipresent - imagery was hard to escape if your own subject matter veered anywhere near themes of sorrow, grief or isolation. Specifically though, it was whilst studying for a printmaking degree, when I became interested in exploring the print output of well-known artists, that I discovered Munch's distinctive approach to woodcuts. Being my earliest preferred method of printmaking, I was personally intrigued by Munch's treatment of the woodblock. On occasion he would break it apart - using a jigsaw of some sort - then ink the individual pieces separately before reassembling it to print the image as a whole. This is evident in this week's selection, Two People - The Lonely Ones, which was on display very recently in Continental Drift: the final show before our closure period. The process not only affords beautifully crisp division between colour planes, but it also allows Munch the complete lines that - in this case - isolate the 'lonely' woman from her male counterpart and the landscape she occupies. Seemingly hovering in an ethereal state of disconnection, she contrasts with the man, whose legs blend with and sink into the sand, his feet breaking into marks that could be pebbles. He is rooted to the ground whereas she seems somewhat free, drifting away from him, perhaps. Andrew Cheetham (Visitor Services Team)
CURATOR'S INSIGHT:
The Norwegian coastline was a powerful inspiration for Edvard Munch, particularly the fishing village of Asgardstrand, about seventy miles south of Oslo. He first rented a small cottage there in the summer of 1889, then bought a cottage in 1897 and kept it for the rest of his life. He shared many emotional experiences in this setting with his friends, and these events were the inspiration for a series of powerful shoreline paintings and prints such as this. Munch made Two People - The Lonely Ones by cutting the large single block into three separate pieces around the main shape of the design. These pieces were inked separately and rejoined for printing. He elegantly combined form and content by cutting the female figure as a separate block, thus ensuring that her printed image would be surrounded by an isolating white line. David Morris (Head of Collections)
FURTHER READING: Munch 150:
http://www.munch150.no/en/About-Munch-150
Munch Museet - The Munch Museum:
http://www.munchmuseet.no/Dokument/For-English-visitors
Continental Drift at the Whitworth:
http://www.whitworth.manchester.ac.uk/whatson/exhibitions/continentaldrift/
