Edvard Munch
1895
Oil paint and tempera on unprimed canvas
‘Disease, insanity and death were the black angels that stood by my cradle’, Edvard Munch wrote of his childhood. He lost both his mother and sister Sophie to tuberculosis when he was young and was himself beset by ill health. He often channeled these experiences into his art, as with this work depicting Sophie on her deathbed, an event that haunted him throughout his life. The figure of Sophie, just fifteen when she died, disappears within the white sheets. She is contrasted with the heavy shadow of grief formed by family members gathered at her side. The work formed part of Munch’s series ‘The Frieze of Life’.