About New Snow

Fragile Drawings

Our museum’s collection includes more than 7000 drawings by Edvard Munch – from the youthful drawings of his childhood years to the last drawings he ever made. Munch drew mainly in pencil, pen, crayon, charcoal and watercolour.

These drawings are extremely fragile and cannot be exposed to light for long periods. This is why they are rarely exhibited to the public, and if we do show them, it has to be in a highly controlled environment. Viewing the digital reproductions of the drawings in our online database is not an adequate substitute, as it lacks the material quality of the originals as well as engaging storytelling, interactivity and user involvement. These are not the best conditions for bringing visitors closer to this largely unknown but fascinating aspect of Munch’s art.

Intimate Drawings

At MUNCH there are only a few experts, such as paper conservators and art historians, who are allowed to handle and touch Munch’s drawings. Those we have spoken to describe this part of their work as a privilege; something that brings them very close to the works and to Munch’s drawing process.

Indeed, exploring Munch’s drawings gives us an intimate view of the artist and his art. These are works that reveal Munch’s visual thinking, his experimental practice and his artistic methods. Drawing is a quick and accessible medium that allowed Munch to test ideas, make quick sketches and different versions of motifs. Many drawings can be seen as preparatory and experimental sketches created to develop and refine particular motifs and themes – motifs that sometimes took final form in painted and printed versions that were later celebrated as masterpieces.

On the other hand, Munch’s drawings also include many motifs that are not represented in his paintings and graphic prints at all. In his drawings the artist also pursued private interests, creating doodles and hand-drawn images that he probably did not consider displaying publicly. Then again, Munch did not discard or destroy these private drawings, but included them in his bequest to the Municipality of Oslo.

Strange Drawings

The private side of Munch’s drawings reveals humour, strangeness and even the frankly weird. He lets us in on his obsessions, his feuds with his ‘enemies’ (including former artist colleagues and supporters, the circle of friends around his ex-lover Tulla Larsen, the Norwegian taxman and business associates who he believed had swindled him).

A deep dive into the drawings catalogue uncovers surprising and unexpected sides: funny caricatures and grotesque eccentricities, snapshots of situations and things that caught his attention. Munch’s tireless pencil captured friends, enemies, strangers, models, animals, landscapes, street scenes, symbolic figures, caricatures, celebrities and much more.

World Drawings

Edvard Munch has often been portrayed as a kind of hermit who kept people at a distance and drew artistic inspiration from his solitude. While there is some truth to this, it is also countered by the fact that Munch produced thousands of drawings throughout his life.

Day in, day out, Munch made drawings of the world around him, and all the strange and wonderful things he imagined. Every new drawing began with a blank white sheet of paper – as pristine and fresh as a landscape covered with new snow. Far from seeking refuge in isolation and the inwardness of his soul, Munch’s drawings testify to his enduring and unbreakable bond with the world.

Universal Drawings

Whenever we invite our visitors to draw, whether it’s in a workshop, an exhibition or the museum lobby, people of all ages and from all walks of life take part. Drawing seems to be part of the human condition and a fundamental means of expressing ourselves and the world around us. As New Snow invites visitors to explore Edvard Munch’s drawings through drawing, we hope to bring together the joy and creativity of drawing as a universal human practice with the artist’s creative drawing processes and the strange and beautiful images he created.