Timeline: Edvard Munch

Edvard Munch is born in Ådalsbruk, Løten, Norway, into a family later marked by illness and bereavement—experiences that would strongly shape his art’s themes of anxiety, loss, and death.

The Munch family moves to Oslo (then Christiania), after his father Christian Munch is appointed medical officer at Akershus Fortress.

Munch’s mother dies of tuberculosis, an early trauma that becomes central to his later “soul painting” approach and recurring illness-and-death motifs.

Munch’s sister Johanne Sophie dies of tuberculosis at age 15, reinforcing the family’s association with illness and grief in his memory and work.

Often ill and kept out of school during winters, Munch spends time drawing; his father’s intense pietism and ghost stories contribute to Munch’s lifelong preoccupation with fear, sorrow, and death.

Munch enrolls in a technical college to study engineering, learning perspective and scaled drawing skills despite frequent illness interruptions.

He produces early landscape work such as “Small Lake with Boat,” reflecting his early experiments in painting before his mature symbolic style.

Munch enrolls at the Royal School of Art and Design in Kristiania (Oslo), studying under artists including Julius Middelthun and Christian Krohg.

He completes an early Self-Portrait, demonstrating rapid development in figure training during his academy years.

Munch participates in his first public exhibition and shares a studio with other students, beginning his public career amid frequent controversy.

His painting “Morning” is later displayed at the Norwegian pavilion during the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris, giving him early international exposure.

Munch paints The Sick Child, based on his sister’s death, calling it his first “soul painting.” Its Oslo display triggers harsh criticism but marks his decisive move beyond Impressionism toward psychological expression.

Munch produces nude studies (largely surviving as sketches); the article notes that some may have been confiscated by his father, reflecting ongoing family conflict about art.

Munch presents his first one-man show of nearly all his works to date; the recognition brings him a two-year scholarship to study in Paris under Léon Bonnat.

He arrives in Paris during the Exposition Universelle (1889), studies at Bonnat’s studio, and is strongly influenced by modern European art—especially Gauguin, van Gogh, and Toulouse-Lautrec.

Munch’s father dies, leaving the family financially insecure; Munch returns home, secures a loan, and assumes financial responsibility for his family, while also experiencing deep depression and suicidal thoughts.

Munch’s work Melancholy (1891) is exhibited at Oslo’s Autumn Exhibition and is described as the first Symbolist painting by a Norwegian artist, signaling his emerging mature style.

Invited by Adelsteen Normann, Munch holds a one-man show with the Union of Berlin Artists; after intense controversy (“The Munch Affair”), the exhibition is closed after one week—raising his notoriety in Europe.

In Berlin, he meets Swedish dramatist August Strindberg, whom he paints, deepening his ties to avant-garde literary and artistic circles.

An exhibition on Unter den Linden in Berlin shows six works titled “Study for a Series: Love,” initiating the cycle later known as The Frieze of Life – A Poem about Life, Love and Death.

Munch creates the first painted version of The Scream, a landmark expression of modern anxiety that becomes his most famous work.

Munch expands The Frieze of Life themes by adding motifs such as Anxiety, Ashes, Madonna, and Women in Three Stages, intensifying his focus on love, fear, and human vulnerability.

Munch embarks on engraving directly onto copper and—largely self-taught—develops a substantial printmaking practice (etching, drypoint, aquatint) that becomes central to his output.

Munch produces prints of The Scream as lithographs (and later), extending the image’s reach beyond painting.

He creates “At the Deathbed” and begins deliberately incorporating paint drips, an effect that grows more prominent later and influences subsequent artists.

Munch moves to Paris and focuses on graphic versions of Frieze of Life themes, further developing woodcut and lithographic techniques and producing works that sell well.

Siegfried Bing exhibits Munch’s work at Maison de l'Art Nouveau in Paris, helping introduce him to a wider French audience despite critics labeling the art “violent and brutal.”

Munch creates “Lady From the Sea,” an example of his large-scale and psychologically charged figure painting of the period.

He produces “Separation,” continuing his exploration of love, loss, and psychological rupture as recurring motifs.

Munch creates his first woodcuts, finding the medium well-suited to his symbolic imagery and becoming an innovator of woodcut practice in Norway.

Munch buys a summer house in Åsgårdstrand—his “Happy House”—and returns there for almost every summer for the next 20 years, using the location as a key source of inspiration.

He returns to Kristiania, where critics begin to show grudging acceptance and familiarity with his work starts to shift public perception.

Munch makes works such as “Metabolism” (initially called Adam and Eve), reflecting his pessimistic philosophy of love and preoccupation with the “fall of man.”

Munch begins a relationship with Tulla Larsen; they travel to Italy, and his art enters a fertile period that includes landscapes and major Frieze works.

He paints The Dance of Life, often described as the final painting in the Frieze of Life series, synthesizing themes of love and life stages.

Munch breaks with Tulla Larsen and moves back to Berlin, reinforcing his aversion to marriage and his sense of instability amid growing attention to his work.

The entire Frieze of Life is shown for the first time at the Berlin Secession exhibition, presenting his themes as a coherent cycle and provoking both antagonism and approval.

Munch exhibits in Paris; the emerging Fauvists likely see his boldly colored work and may draw inspiration from it.

He paints “From Thuringerwald,” exemplifying how he uses landscape and nature as emotional motifs rather than conventional scenic painting.

Munch paints a stage screen for an Henrik Ibsen play at Berlin’s Deutsches Theater, where the Frieze of Life was hung; the work is later sold and ends up in the Berlin Nationalgalerie.

After an accidental shooting incident involving Tulla Larsen injures two of his fingers, Munch channels the emotional aftermath into paintings such as Still Life (The Murderess) and The Death of Marat I.

Munch suffers a severe breakdown—acute anxiety compounded by heavy drinking and brawling—and enters Daniel Jacobson’s clinic for treatment involving diet and “electrification.”

After returning to Norway, his work becomes more colorful and less pessimistic; the public in Kristiania becomes more accepting and museums begin acquiring his paintings.

Munch produces the second painted version of The Scream, completing the set of four principal versions alongside the 1893 and 1895 pastels.

He paints “Solen (The Sun),” a work often read as reflecting renewed optimism and later used on the reverse of Norway’s 1000-kroner notes (2001–2019).

The final competition to decorate the University of Oslo Aula is held between Munch and Emanuel Vigeland, initiating the long “Aula controversy.”

Munch’s first American exhibit opens in New York, marking an important expansion of his international reputation.

Munch is commissioned to decorate the University of Oslo Aula, resolving the controversy in his favor and beginning a major monumental project.

The University of Oslo Aula decorations are completed: 11 paintings covering 223 m², with The Sun, History, and Alma Mater as key works.

During World War I, Munch describes divided loyalties—many friends in Germany but affection for France—while continuing to work amid changing European conditions.

Munch survives a bout of the Spanish flu, later capturing the experience in self-portraiture and reinforcing his awareness of mortality.

He paints Self-Portrait with the Spanish Flu, continuing an unsparing self-portrait tradition that documents his physical and emotional state.

With the rise of the Nazi movement, Munch’s German patrons—many of them Jewish—lose fortunes and in some cases their lives, disrupting his market and connections.

Munch paints “Winter Night, Ekely,” reflecting his later years spent largely in solitude at his estate in Oslo.

The Nazis label Munch’s art “degenerate art” and remove 82 of his works from German museums; Adolf Hitler publicly denounces modern artists in ideological terms.

Germany invades Norway; Munch, then 76, fears Nazi confiscation and hides works at his home. Paintings previously removed by Nazis had partly returned to Norway through purchases by collectors.

Munch paints Self-Portrait. Between the Clock and the Bed., a late summative work confronting aging and mortality.

The 1943 Filipstad explosion in Oslo damages Munch’s house; he witnesses the firelight and paints “Explosion,” but the cold, wet night contributes to a respiratory illness.

Edvard Munch dies at his house at Ekely in Oslo, aged 80, following respiratory illness.

Despite Munch’s wishes for privacy, his funeral is commandeered by the Nazi authorities in Norway and turned into a propaganda event, shaping public perceptions of his politics after death.

Munch’s Åsgårdstrand cabin (“Happy House”) is given to the municipality and preserved as a small museum with its inventory maintained as he left it.

The city of Oslo buys Munch’s Ekely estate from his heirs; the house is later demolished (1960).

The Munch Museum opens in Oslo after Munch’s remaining works are bequeathed to the city, forming the world’s largest collection of his art.

The 1893 painted version of The Scream is stolen from Oslo’s National Gallery and later recovered, highlighting ongoing security and provenance challenges around Munch’s masterpieces.

The 1910 version of The Scream and one version of Madonna are stolen from the Munch Museum; they are recovered in 2006 with limited damage.

The 1895 pastel version of The Scream sells at auction for US$119,922,500, becoming a landmark sale for Munch and for the art market more broadly.

Norway marks the 150th anniversary of Munch’s birth with commemorative postage stamps depicting four of his paintings; the University Aula decorations’ value is also discussed publicly.

Major exhibitions emphasize Munch’s engagement with nature and place, including Edvard Munch: Trembling Earth at the Clark Art Institute and related collaborations in Berlin and Potsdam.

The Yale University Art Gallery hosts “Munch and Kirchner: Anxiety and Expression,” focusing on printmaking and how both artists engaged with the anxieties of their age.

Harvard Art Museum hosts “Edvard Munch: Technically Speaking,” reflecting continued scholarly and museum interest in both his paintings and prints.