Edvard Munch at the Clark: Beyond The Scream
And a word from Bente Torjusen
If you play a game of word association and say “Edvard Munch,” someone will undoubtedly respond “The Scream.” Munch, the famous Norwegian artist, who loved his dogs and once imagined the invention of the cell phone, painted “The Scream”when he was 30 years old. He lived to be 80. What did he do with those remaining years? He painted.
That Munch enjoyed a robust artistic life following “The Scream” is just one fact that Bente Torjusen, former and long-time director of the Upper Valley’s AVA Gallery —and Munch scholar—would like you to take from Trembling Earth, the newly opened exhibition of Munch’s work at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown MA. And while “The Scream” is not entirely absent (there is a lithograph), Trembling Earth is centered around Munch’s landscapes. Bente believes the exhibition, which includes some works from private collections seldom previously seen, “is long overdue.” And she recommends the accompanying catalogue to add depth to the viewer’s understanding of Munch’s connection to the earth and its energy.
Torjusen knows whereof she speaks. For several years in the 1960s and 1970s, she worked and co-curated several exhibitions at the then newly founded Munch Museum in Oslo. She was also a major contributor to the catalogue for the Munch exhibition, “Symbols and Images of Edvard Munch,” that opened in fall 1978 at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. In 1986, she authored the book “Words and Images of Edvard Munch,” designed by her late husband, Clifford B. West (“who had made two 16mm documentary films on Munch, one on his paintings, and one on his prints”), and published by Chelsea Green. It garnered a favorable review by the New York Times.
The exhibition at the Clark is organized thematically to show how Munch used nature to convey human emotions and relationships, celebrate farming practice and garden cultivation, and to explore the mysteries of the forest even as his Norwegian homeland faced industrialization. “This exhibition draws on new research to offer a fresh perspective on Munch’s career,” said Jay A. Clarke, Rothman Family Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago. “Alongside depictions of death, existential torment, and troubled relationships, Munch also created imagery reflecting his knowledge of science, showing his embrace of pantheism, and a deep reverence for nature.”
Trembling Earth features seventy-five objects, ranging from brilliantly hued landscapes and three self-portraits, to an extensive selection of the artist’s prints and drawings. The Clark is the sole U.S. venue for the exhibition which opened on June 10 and is on view through October 15, 2023. The exhibition will be presented in Potsdam from November 18, 2023–April 1, 2024, and in Oslo from April 27–August 24, 2024.
The Clark, which has a three-star rating in the Michelin Green Guide, is located at 225 South Street in Williamstown, Massachusetts, approximately 80 miles from the Upper Valley. Its 140-acre campus includes miles of hiking and walking trails through woodlands and meadows, providing an exceptional experience of art in nature. Galleries are open 10 am to 5 pm Tuesday through Sunday, from September through June, and daily in July and August. For information, including programs for free admission, visit the website or call 413 458 2303. The Clark is a stone’s throw (6 miles) from MASS MoCA, the immense contemporary art museum in North Adams, if you want to include it in your trip.
For fun, take a brief onscreen trip (click here) to Munchmuseet in Oslo to learn “10 Things You May Not Know About Edvard Munch.”
(Photo, top, courtesy of Anna West and Bente Torjusen. Other photos and quoted content by Jay A. Clarke courtesy of The Clark press page. Undated photo of Edvard Munch via WikiCommons. This image, which was originally posted to Flickr, was uploaded to Commons using Flickr upload bot on 13 April 2013, 10:14 by Anne-Sophie Ofrim. On that date, it was confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the license indicated.)
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And in case you are wondering . . . Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.