Edvard Munch
1898
Oil paint on canvas
Edvard Munch painted over 200 portraits during his career. His approach was marked by a sense of close rapport with his sitters. He sought to capture their immediacy and presence, as with this work representing Marie Helene, the wife of Munch’s childhood friend Halvard Stub Holmboe. Marie Helene’s casual pose as she leans slightly forward as if in conversation denotes a certain comfort between artist and sitter. Munch’s loose brushwork, sketchy in places, heightens the
sense of informality.