Weinender Akt

By 1913 Munch was close to winning the argument he had been having with the University in Kristiania, now Oslo, for years. His decorations for the great hall were finally commissioned in 1914 and put up in 1916, and they are bright public pictures, a rising sun, the figure of Alma Mater, a landscape of that same southern coast. In the studio during exactly those years he was painting this. A woman sits on the edge of a bed with her knees apart and her head down, hair over her face, one hand raised to her eyes. He made several versions of the figure in 1913 and 1914, in paint and in print, and none of them was going anywhere public. The canvas runs about 110 by 135 centimetres, so she is close to life size.