Born in 1863, in a farmhouse village in Norway, Edvard Munch’s childhood was tainted by illness. His mother died of tuberculosis when he was only 5. And because he was a weak child he spent most of his winters in the farmhouse, too sick to attend school. Drawing was a way to occupy those long, boring days at home, and he had talent. To his religious father’s dismay, Munch eventually set out to study painting at the Royal School of Art and Design; he was particularly drawn to Impressionism, the work of Manet, Van Gogh, and Gauguin. It was around then that he befriended the nihilist Hans Jaeger, who introduced him to anti-establishment thinking. In 1886, Munch broke from Impressionism and created his first “soul painting”—The Sick Child. This exhibition presents paintings, drawings, and prints of similar themes. As the artist himself said, “these paintings, admittedly relatively difficult to understand, will be easier to apprehend if they are integrated into a whole.” —Elena Clavarino