Tumult... Munch's The Scream. Three versions of the work are housed in Oslo.Credit: Reuters
Nick Trend maps a creative life in cafes and on canvas.
Next year is the 150th anniversary of Edvard Munch's birth and there will be major exhibitions at Oslo's National Gallery and the Munch Museum. His studio at Ekeley will be open, as will the Freia chocolate factory.
The National Gallery holds one of the most remarkable collections of paintings by a single artist I have ever seen in one room. The Munch room has 17 of his paintings of the highest quality on permanent display, including The Scream, Portrait of Hans Jaeger, The Sick Child, The Dead Mother, Ashes, Madonna, The Day After, Girls on the Bridge and Melancholy.
It's the best place in the world to get an instant impression of the quality and power of his work. (Universitetsgata 13. Open daily, except Mondays. Tickets 50 Norwegian krone ($7.90) a person. See nasjonalmuseet.no/en).
University of Oslo has some of Munch's most surprising work in its Aula (congregation hall). His murals, painted to celebrate the university's 100th anniversary in 1916, include The Sun — a brilliant evocation of the power of light and what he described as one of "the big, eternal forces". You can only visit occasionally when the hall is being used for public concerts — the Norwegian Radio Orchestra and the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra regularly perform here. (See uio.no/english).
Freia chocolate factory is famous in Norway for its confectionery — and for the fact Munch decorated the dining hall in 1920 with a frieze of 12 summery scenes of Norwegian country life.
As at the Aula, the exhibits show a side of the artist very different from his angst-ridden earlier work. Guided tours only. (See visitoslo.com/en).
The site of The Scream is at Ekeberg. Take tram No.18 or 19 from Oslo's city centre and get off at Sjomannskolen, then walk up to the art deco Ekeberg Restaurant (see ekebergrestauranten.com).
Munch seems to have had his revelation by the railings overlooking the fiord.
Engebret Cafe is Oslo's oldest, housed in a lovely low-beamed building in the old part of town. It dates from the 18th century and was thriving in the 19th and early 20th century when Ibsen, Grieg and Munch regularly ate and drank there. Framed on the wall is the resignation letter Munch sent to the Art Association after he was thrown out for drunkenness. The open sandwiches are delicious. (See engebret-cafe.no).
Henrik Ibsen's apartment in Oslo overlooks the Royal Palace. Now the Ibsen Museum, it gives a detailed insight into the writer, a man of meticulous habit who admitted visitors for exactly 10 minutes (he kept his pocket watch out to time them).
The desk where he wrote his last two plays, John Gabriel Borkman and When We Dead Awaken, is by the window. Opposite is a portrait of Strindberg, his "deadly enemy", which he bought in 1895 to remind him of their rivalry. (At Henrik Ibsen Gate, open daily. See norskfolkemuseum.no/en).
Composer Edvard Grieg finished his famous piano concerto while living in an apartment at 13 Kirkegate in 1868, but there is no plaque to mark the house.
The best way to enjoy Grieg is to plan a visit during the annual festival, usually held in May. (See oslogriegfestival.no).
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