Edvard Munch:
Picture "Celline Nude" (1912)
Proportional view
Picture "Celline Nude" (1912)
Edvard Munch:
Picture "Celline Nude" (1912)

Quick info

limited, 20 copies | signed | drypoint | framed | size 61 x 49.5 cm

Product no. IN-888459.R1
Picture "Celline Nude" (1912)
Edvard Munch: Picture "Celline Nude" (1912)

Detailed description

Picture "Celline Nude" (1912)

There is very little known about Céline Cuvelier, who posed for Edvard Munch during one of his many visits to Paris. The young woman was just eighteen years old at the time she posed sitting and undressed for the famous Norwegian painter. Whether anything developed between the two beyond the painter-model relationship is not clear.
What has survived are a few letters and a postcard depicting the Mona Lisa addressed by Cuvelier to Munch, in which she apologises for missing a meeting due to illness, complains about Munch's hasty departure from Paris and asks the artist for a portrait photograph.

Of course, what remains are the artistic-erotic, extremely charming works that show Céline. Incidentally, one sheet from the edition of the present drypoint etching is part of the collection of the National Gallery in Oslo, which also houses what is probably Munch's most famous work, "The Scream".

Original drypoint, 1912. edition: 20 copies, signed by hand. Motif size/sheet size 45 x 32 cm. Size in frame 61 x 49.5 cm as shown.

Portrait of the artist Edvard Munch

About Edvard Munch

1863-1944

The Norwegian painter and graphic artist Edvard Munch was one of the most important pioneers of Expressionism. His works revolve around the great human tragedies between Eros and death and he faced the deepest human feelings relentlessly and forcefully.

The oppressive mood of his most famous work, "The Scream", was typical of Munch, whose art often dealt with the existential questions of life, primarily fear, despair, melancholy, grief, death, love and jealousy. In this sombre choice of themes, one can certainly find references to his biography: Munch lost his mother and sister at an early age and struggled with depression and alcoholism throughout his life. Like hardly any other artist, Munch was able to give expression to his state of mind and to impressively bring the emotionally strong themes onto the canvas. Although he painted representationally, he made his motifs appear peculiarly deformed and used a very dynamic painting style with powerful colours. His innovative pictorial language and his way of symbolically depicting states of mind made Edvard Munch a pioneer of Expressionism and one of the most important painters of the 19th and 20th-centuries.

In the summer of 2004, Munch's two most famous paintings, "The Scream" and "Madonna", were stolen from the Munch Museum in Oslo in the most spectacular art theft of our time. The paintings were not secured until August 2006. "The Scream" - the world's best-known work of Expressionism - was so badly damaged in the process that it could not be exhibited again until today.

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