Edvard Munch in Oslo

Edvard Munch and Oslo are connected in several ways. Oslo is the city where Munch grew up and started out as an artist. It is also the place where he spent the last decades of his life. Today, Oslo houses a large part of Munch’s artistic production, including his best-known masterpieces. And did you know that Oslo can be spotted in the background of Munch's most famous painting, Scream?

Map over Munch's Oslo

The map below shows the way to all the places in Oslo where you can see Munch’s art, all the places where he lived (none of which can be entered, unfortunately), some of the restaurants he frequented and other spots in the city that were important in Munch’s life. We have also mapped out a few places in Oslo that appear in Munch’s art.

Click on or touch the pins in the map to navigate and get more information about the different locations.

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Munch's art in Oslo

Oslo hosts the bulk of Munch's artistic production, including world-famous masterpieces like Scream, Dance of Life and Madonna.

The main venues for Munch's art in Oslo are MUNCH and the National Museum. However, if you're up for a treasure hunt, there are also a few works by Munch on display other places in the city.

MUNCH

When he died in 1944, Edvard Munch left all of his works still in his possession to the municipality of Oslo. These works have their permanent home at MUNCH.

This top-modern 13-floor museum has 11 exhibition halls. In addition to Munch's art, it hosts changing exhibitions by other artists as well as cultural events. Fortunately, you won't have to experience all of this on an empty stomach: The museum has its own café and a restaurant.

The National Museum

The National Gallery in Oslo was the first public collection ever to buy a painting from Munch, Night in Nizza, in 1891. Today, the museum owns a notable set of paintings from Munch’s early career and up until 1920, including masterworks such as Puberty (1894-95), Ashes (1895), The dance of life (1899), and the most well-known version of Scream (1893).

The National Gallery closed its doors in January 2019, and is now a part of the National Museum.

The University's Aula

The University’s Aula is located in Domus Media, one of the buildings at the University of Oslo’s downtown campus. Munch won the competition to decorate the new hall built at the university’s 100th anniversary in 1911. The work was finished on location in 1916.

At the time, the large paintings were controversial in their experimental, expressionistic style. Today they stand as monumental expressions of what Munch himself described as "the big, eternal forces". The most famous work in the aula is The Sun.

The Aula is normally open to the public on the first Saturday of every month. A peek in the Aula's concert calendar might reveal an opportunity to experience the paintings accompanied by wonderful music.

Oslo City Hall

In the so-called Munch room in Oslo City Hall, you'll find a large painting by Edvard Munch entitled Life. The room is accessible during the City Hall's regular opening hours.

Bar Boman

One of Norway’s largest private Munch collections is hanging on the walls of Bar Boman, the lobby bar at Hotel Continental.

In 1932, hotel owner Arne Boman Hansen bought twelve prints by Munch at an Oslo art dealer. Since he offered to buy them all, Boman Hansen was given a special price of only NOK 5 500.

Oslo in Munch's art

Oslo, or Kristiania as the city was called until 1924, is not a frequent motif in Munch's art. Still, some of the places in and around Kristania that were important to Munch in different periods of his life also surface in his pictures – glimpses of the city as seen by Edvard Munch.

Karl Johan's street

The upper part of Oslo's main street Karl Johans gate, from Egertorget square to the Royal Palace, ties together several places of significance in Munch's life. It was here that Munch rented his first studio, right across from the parliament building.

A bit further up the street was Grand Café, a popular hangout for artists in the late 1800s. Blomqvist art gallery, where Munch held many of his exhibitions, was located in Karl Johans gate 35 at the time. The same block also hosted the space where Munch showed his magnum opus The frieze of life in 1904.

Munch painted several paintings with this stretch of Karl Johan as the motif. Different weather conditions and seasonal variations yielded different renderings of the street. The Karl Johan paintings are mostly naturalistic, some almost impressionistic, such as Spring Day on Karl Johan Street (1890).

The anxiety-ridden painting Evening on Karl Johan Street (1891) is of a rather different nature, however. This is Karl Johan envisioned and painted by the expressionist Edvard Munch.

The Kristiania fjord

Scream (1893) is Edvard Munch's most famous motif: An agitated figure in a distorted landscape against a deep red sky. Munch allegedly got the inspiration for this motif during a hike in the hills of Ekeberg. He wrote a text that relates to this episode:

"I was out walking with two friends – the sun began to set – suddenly the sky turned blood red – I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence – there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city – my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety – and I sensed an endless scream passing through nature."

Scream is mainly an abstraction and an inner landscape, a vision of modern anxiety and alienation. The actual view from Ekebergåsen is, however, recognizable, with the bay of Bjørvika, where the Opera is located today, and the point where Akershus fortress is located visible in the background.

Ekely

Munch left Kristiania in 1889, and lived abroad for several years. He returned to the Kristiania area in 1916 when he purchased the property Ekely, located a bit outside the city proper.

Due to personal conflicts, Munch had come to view Kristiania as "the enemy’s city", and he lived quite isolated at Ekely. He remained a highly productive artist, however. Ekely is captured in several paintings that document different aspects of Munch’s later years, up until his death in 1944.

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Edvard Munch in Oslo

Map over Munch's Oslo

More Oslo map guides

VisitOSLO's guide to urban art

Sonja Henie's Oslo

Harry Hole's Oslo

Outdoor sculptures in Oslo

The locations from SKAM

Oslo – City of Peace

See also

Gustav Vigeland in Oslo

A walk with Henrik Ibsen