Munch in Dialogue

In dialogue with Edward Munch—discover the many ways the expressionist painter’s work has influenced modern and contemporary artists.

While Munch’s pessimistic, melancholy world view crucially defines our understanding of his work, many important postwar and contemporary artists have drawn inspiration from several aspects of his oeuvre.

This richly illustrated book explores how seven such artists — Georg Baselitz, Miriam Cahn, Peter Doig, Marlene Dumas, Tracey Emin, Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol— engaged with Munch’s work at different points in, or throughout, their careers. It features elaborate reproductions of sixty works by Munch juxtaposed with those inspired by him. Readers discover how Baselitz cunningly pays tribute to his artistic hero; how Tracey Emin’s practice, like Munch’s, is autobiographical, both drawing from their personal torment to create their unnerving works; how Marlene Dumas was drawn to the expressiveness of Munch’s portraits; and how Peter Doig draws on Munch’s radical treatment of pigments and materiality. Essays by leading scholars detail each artist’s unique preoccupation with Munch and offer a focused exploration of the ways women artists in particular were inspired by his examinations of loneliness, fear, and trauma.