An Article by Our London Correspondant F. A. (1121 words, 6 min. read)
The first thing I saw when I entered the National Portrait Gallery in London was Edvard Munch watching me. His self-portrait from 1882–83 just waits for visitors. Painted when he was just nineteen, it does not yet carry the agony we associate with his name. Instead, it breathes with quiet curiosity. His gaze is direct, searching, neither proud nor apologetic. I stood before him and thought: So this is where it begins, not with terror, but with candor.
This inaugural moment sets the tone for the entire exhibition. Edvard Munch: Portraits is not about his most famous works or archetypal anguish. Rather, it is a study of closeness, a raw unveiling of others as much as himself. Widely regarded as one of the great portraitists of the 19th and 20th centuries, Munch consistently produced deeply intimate portraits of family, friends, lovers, writers, and patrons. But beyond likeness, he painted the very sensation of being seen.
This is the first exhibition in the UK dedicated entirely to Munch’s portraiture, a long-overdue homage to a vital, often overshadowed dimension of his legacy. The show reveals how Munch painted both on commission and for deeply personal reasons, and how even these portraits (anchored in the real, named individuals) transcend identity and tap into something universal. They are not just likenesses. They are case studies in solitude, vanity, illness, desire, memory.
Smoke, Tension, and the Bohemian Psyche
The next gallery feels heavier. I walked into a space brimming with psychological electricity. The early work Tête-à-tête (1885) shows two figures in a dusky room, their faces nearly touching but emotionally detached. Munch does not give us the warmth of closeness, but the friction of silence. You can almost hear the unsaid words hovering.
Then: August Strindberg (1892). The Swedish playwright’s portrait is practically vibrating with hostility. Painted in brooding blues and browns, his expression is manic, his eyes almost accusatory. Their portrait session was reportedly tense as Munch and Strindberg clashed fiercely, both psychologically fragile, both brilliant. Strindberg even threatened Munch afterward. The painting feels like a confrontation, and standing before it, I could feel the adrenaline. Munch was not just documenting; he was dueling.
Felix Auerbach’s was a renowned German physicist. His portrait, drawn with Van Gogh on mind, was painted in a single session. The portrait made its way to the Van Gogh Museum of Art and is now on display among Munch’s portrait collections at the National Portrait Gallery in London.
The Anatomy of Psychological Warfare
What struck me most in the next room was Dr Daniel Jacobson (1908). Here, Munch paints the very man who once institutionalized him. It is a portrait that pulses with fury and grandeur. Jacobson stands tall, hands firm on hips, immersed in swirling reds and yellows. It is defiant, even triumphant, but also deeply unsettling. Jacobson himself called it “stark raving mad.” I believe he recognized something: that he had become part of Munch’s revenge.
Nearby hangs Jappe Nilssen (1909), Munch’s friend and sometime confidant. Nilssen reclines in a violet suit, confident but oddly vulnerable. He later described the painting as “vicious.” That is what Munch often did: he exposed the emotional fault lines beneath even the most composed façades.
In Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche (1906), Munch stares down Nietzsche’s sister with chilling precision. During the sitting, he reportedly talked over her constantly, flooding the room with his own voice to silence hers. That power dynamic lingers on the canvas. She looks locked in a battle she did not win.
The famous English violinist Eva Mudocci, Munch’s lover and muse is also depicted in a famous lithograph from 1903. This is closely connected to Munch’s Madonna series which depicts love, death and eroticism.
From Sitter to Symbol
Munch’s portraits often operate on dual planes. While rooted in real individuals, they become symbolic, somehow icons of humanity’s fragility. This is what makes his portraiture so unique. As the curators remind us, “Many pictures double up as icons or examples of the human condition despite being based on the direct observation of named individuals.”
Take Walther Rathenau, the German foreign minister. He painted mid-motion, with a cigar and a sharp suit. But there is a restlessness in the image, a subtle psychic blur. Rathenau later quipped, “That’s what you get for having your portrait done by a great artist; you look more like yourself than you really are.”
Borrowed from the Naional Gallery of Oslo, the portrait of writer Hans Jaeger haunts you with his stare, his drink and his position. The loose strokes describe a mood, an inner state, rather than a purely realistic representation. A true masterpiece.
Friendship, Loyalty, and Quiet Devotion
Not all the portraits are confrontational. Toward the end, the tone shifts. I paused in front of the dual paintings of Ludvig Karsten, one destined for the world, the other kept by Munch for himself. These were not just portraits. They were emotional keepsakes. Here, Munch painted not out of necessity or even compulsion, but gratitude.
And then came a painting that stopped me entirely: Model with a Green Scarf (Sultan Abdul Karim) (1916). Karim, Munch’s chauffeur and assistant, was a Black man whose portrait is rendered with unprecedented tenderness. He stares out from beneath a warm scarf, his eyes human, serene, seen. Munch does not exoticize or reduce him. He dignifies him. In a world that too often overlooked people like Karim, Munch made sure he would not disappear.
The Art of Exposure
Curator Alison Smith writes, “Munch wanted to delve behind everyone’s mask.” He was not interested in idealized faces or flattering likenesses. He was interested in what lay beneath the surface: “He wasn’t painting vanity or flattery. He was painting confrontation, between the subject and their own mind.”
This show contains more than forty works spanning fifty years, and they chart a remarkable evolution—from tight naturalism to violent expressionism—but the emotional core never wavers. Munch painted people in all their paradoxes: brilliant and broken, tender and cruel, radiant and fading.
Leaving with Munch’s Eyes
As I walked back through the galleries, I found myself rethinking that young self-portrait. What had once looked like a polite introduction now seemed like the opening move in a lifelong experiment in honesty. Munch, the eternal observer, had turned his gaze inward, then outward, then back again.
By the time I exited, I no longer felt like I visited an exhibition. I felt like I was introduced to his world: a place where every face tells a story, and every story reveals something about ourselves.
