Color woodcut on cream wove paper, 1899. 250x198 mm; 10x7 3/4 inches, full margins. Third state (of 3). Signed in pencil, lower right. A superb impression of this very scarce woodcut with strong colors.
Munch (1863-1944) started training as an architect in 1879 at Kristiania Technical College. The following year he decided to pursue painting and, in 1882, rented a studio in Kristiania with six other young artists. In 1883, he had his first public show at the Kristiana Industry and Art Exhibition, which included one painting and two drawings, and two years later he began work on several of his key works, including The Day After, Puberty and The Sick Child.
Munch's early career, through the 1890s, was also his most productive period for color woodcuts. He created many of his iconic printed images during this time, notably the color woodcuts Angst, 1896; The Kiss, 1897-98; and Two Human Beings (The Lonely Ones), 1899. These were in turn a significant influence on the subsequent generation of artists, particularly those in the German Die Brücke group alongside contemporaries such as Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein and Otto Mueller, and the French Les Fauves with notable artists such as Henri Matisse, André Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck, Georges Rouault and Kees van Dongen.
According to Woll, Munch depicted prostitutes like this one in Den Tykke Horen (or The Fat Whore) in several works; the one most similar to this woodcut is the painting Rose and Amélie, 1893, now in the Munch Museum, Oslo. Schiefler 131; Woll 154.
