Oil paint on canvas
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<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/edvard-munch-1678" aria-label="More by Edvard Munch" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Edvard Munch</a>
Sick Child
Presented by Thomas Olsen 1939
adults
bed
bedroom
birth to death
Bjolstad, Karen
children
consumption
death
diseases and conditions
domestic
emotions and human qualities
emotions, concepts and ideas
furnishings
girl
grief
illness
individuals: female
interiors
named individuals
Nielsen, Betzy
objects
people
portraits
society
woman
<p><span>The Sick Child </span>draws upon Munch’s memory of his sister Sophie’s death from tuberculosis at the age of fifteen. The model was a young girl who Munch had observed sitting distraught when he accompanied his father, a doctor, to treat her brother’s broken leg. Munch worked on the painting for a year, developing the rapid brushwork and vivid colour that suggest the painful evocation of a traumatic memory. ‘It was a breakthrough in my art’, he later wrote. ‘Most of what I have done since had its birth in this picture’. He made several versions over a period of forty years. This was the fourth version.</p><p><em>Gallery label, January 2019</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
18 April 2005 – 31 October 2005
2005-10-31
18 April 2005
2005-04-18
Tate Modern (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
2005-04-18
Degenerate Art
Collection based display
19 March 2007 – 1 January 2008
2008-01-01
18 March 2007 – 15 July 2007
2007-07-15
2007-03-18
Fondation Beyeler (Riehen/Basel, Switzerland)
http://www.beyeler.com
3 August 2007 – 1 January 2008
2008-01-01
2007-08-03
Kunsthalle Würth (Schwäbisch Hall, Germany)
http://www.wuerth.com
2007-03-19
Edvard Munch - His Work as an Essential Contribution to Modernity
Loan-out
15 January 2009 – 3 May 2009
2009-05-03
15 January 2009 – 3 May 2009
2009-05-03
2009-01-15
National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design (Oslo, Norway)
2009-01-15
Edvard Munch: The Sick Child, 1885-86
Loan-out
3 September 2009 – 3 January 2010
2010-01-03
3 September 2009 – 3 January 2010
2010-01-03
2009-09-03
Ordrupgaard (Charlottenlund, Denmark)
http://www.ordrupgaard.dk
2009-09-03
Edvard Munch and Denmark
Loan-out
21 September 2011 – 14 October 2012
2012-10-14
21 September 2011 – 9 January 2012
2012-01-09
2011-09-21
Robert Rubin
28 June 2012 – 14 October 2012
2012-10-14
2012-06-28
Tate Modern (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
2011-09-21
Edvard Munch: The Modern Eye
Exhibition
9 February 2012 – 6 May 2012
2012-05-06
9 February 2012 – 6 May 2012
2012-05-06
2012-02-09
Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt (Frankfurt, Germany)
http://www.schirn.de
2012-02-09
Edvard Munch: The Modern Eye
Loan-out
6 June 2013 – 6 October 2013
2013-10-06
6 June 2013 – 6 October 2013
2013-10-06
2013-06-06
Munch Museum (Oslo, Norway)
http://www.munch.museum.no
2013-06-06
Reciprocal for Modern Eye: Edvard Munch 150th Anniversary Exhibition
Loan-out
6 October 2015 – 17 January 2016
2016-01-17
6 October 2015 – 17 January 2016
2016-01-17
2015-10-06
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza (Madrid, Spain)
2015-10-06
Edvard Munch
Loan-out
24 June 2017 – 31 January 2018
2018-01-31
24 June 2017 – 24 September 2017
2017-09-24
2017-06-24
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (San Francisco, USA)
23 October 2017 – 31 January 2018
2018-01-31
2017-10-23
Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, USA)
http://www.metmuseum.org
2017-06-24
Edvard Munch: Between the Clock and the Bed
Loan-out
11 April 2019 – 21 July 2019
2019-07-21
11 April 2019 – 21 July 2019
2019-07-21
2019-04-11
British Museum (London, UK)
http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk
2019-04-11
Love Loss Loneliness, Prints by Edvard Munch
Loan-out
18 February 2021 – 26 June 2021
2021-06-26
18 February 2021 – 26 June 2021
2021-06-26
2021-02-18
Albertina Museum (Vienna, Austria)
http://www.albertina.at/en
2021-02-18
Munch and Beyond
Loan-out
17 February 2022 – 19 June 2022
2022-06-19
17 February 2022 – 19 June 2022
2022-06-19
2022-02-17
Albertina Museum (Vienna, Austria)
http://www.albertina.at/en
2022-02-17
Munch and Beyond
Loan-out
The Sick Child
support: 1187 × 1210 mm
frame: 1371 × 1393 × 108 mm
Presented by Thomas Olsen 1939
<div class="text">
<p>
<i>The Sick Child </i>draws upon Munch’s memory of his sister Sophie’s death from tuberculosis at the age of fifteen. The model was a young girl who Munch had observed sitting distraught when he accompanied his father, a doctor, to treat her brother’s broken leg. Munch worked on the painting for a year, developing the rapid brushwork and vivid colour that suggest the painful evocation of a traumatic memory. ‘It was a breakthrough in my art’, he later wrote. ‘Most of what I have done since had its birth in this picture’. He made several versions over a period of forty years. This was the fourth version.</p>
</div>

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2019-01-22T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>Edvard Munch</b><span> 1863-1944 </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span><a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/munch-the-sick-child-n05035" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05035</span></a> </span><b>The Sick Child</b><span> 1907 </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>Inscribed 'E. Munch' b.l. and 'Edv. Munch' b.r.</span>
<br/><span>Oil on canvas, 46 3/4 x 47 5/8 (118.5 x 121)</span>
<br/><span>Presented by Thomas Olsen 1939</span>
<br/><i>Prov:</i><span>
Gemäldegalerie, Dresden (purchased from the artist 1928); with Harald Holst Halvorsen, Oslo, 1938; Thomas Olsen, Oslo, 1939</span>
<br/><i>Exh:</i><span>
</span><i>Internationale Kunst Ausstellung</i><span>, Dresden, June-September 1926 (244, repr.); </span><i>Edvard Munch</i><span>, Kunsthalle, Mannheim, November 1926-January 1927 (35, repr.) as 'Krankes Mädchen (vierte Fassung)' 1907; Nationalgalerie, Berlin, March-May 1927 (112, repr.); Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo, June 1927 (165, repr.); </span><i>Edv. Munchs tyske museumsmalerier</i><span>, Halvorsen, Oslo, January 1939 (40, repr.)</span>
<br/><i>Lit:</i><span>
Jens Thiis, </span><i>Edvard Munch og hans Samtid</i><span>
(Oslo 1933), pp.132-8; Frederick B. Deknatel, </span><i>Edvard Munch</i><span> (New York 1950), pp.10, 12; </span><i>Aftenposten</i><span>, 1 February 1954 (evening edition); Arne Eggum, 'The Theme of Death' in exh. catalogue </span><i>Edvard Munch: Symbols and Images</i><span>, National Gallery, Washington, DC, 1978, pp.143-53, 180-1</span>
<br/><i>Repr:</i><span>
</span><i>Studio</i><span>, CXXXI, 1946, p.176; John Rothenstein, </span><i>The Tate Gallery</i><span> (London 1958), p.141 in colour; Jean Selz, </span><i>Edvard Munch</i><span> (Naefels 1976), p.72 in colour  </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>This is said to be the fourth of the six versions in oil of this subject. There are also three related <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/print" title="Glossary definition for 'Print'"><span>prints</span></a>: an <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/e/etching" title="Glossary definition for 'Etching'"><span>etching</span></a> of 1894 (Willoch, No.7; Schiefler, No.7); a second etching of the head alone, 1896 (Willoch, No.47; Schiefler, No.60); and a coloured <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/l/lithography" title="Glossary definition for 'Lithography'"><span>lithograph</span></a>, 1896 (Schiefler, No.59). </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>The painted versions are as follows: </span>
<br/></p>
<blockquote><span>1. Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo 1885-6 (partly overpainted in the 1890s)</span>
<br/><span>2. Konstmuseet, Gothenburg 1896</span>
<br/><span>Painted in Paris when Munch made the colour lithograph of this subject with the printer Clot.</span>
<br/><span>3. Thielska Galleriet, Stockholm 1907</span>
<br/><span>Commissioned by the Swedish banker Ernst Thiel in the spring of 1907 and painted at Warnemünde. On 30 June 1907 Munch wrote to Thiel 'in a few days "The Sick Child" will arrive from Nörregaard, so I can make a start'.</span><br/><span>4. The Tate Gallery 1907</span>
<br/><span>Stated in the catalogues of the Munch retrospective exhibition at Mannheim, Berlin and Oslo in 1926-7 to be the fourth version and dated 1907. Arne Eggum writes (letter of 17 October 1977) that Munch stated in a late note that he painted two copies of 'The Sick Child' at Warnemünde in 1907, one for Dr Thiel (which would be the version now in the Thielska Galleriet) and the other for Mr Schou. However Mr Schou originally owned the version in the Konstmuseet, Gothenburg, which is signed and dated 1896. There is photographic evidence that Munch painted the version for Dr Thiel at Warnemünde in 1907, and in the same <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/photograph" title="Glossary definition for 'Photograph'"><span>photograph</span></a> it seems possible to identify the version which is now at the Tate. Thus Arne Eggum believes that Munch must either have remembered wrongly about <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> a copy for Mr Schou in Warnemünde, or the Tate version was originally intended for him.</span>
<br/><span>It has sometimes been suggested by past curators of the Munch Museum that the Tate's version was painted in 1916, but there seems to be no evidence for this other than a tradition that Munch painted one version of 'The Sick Child' in that year.</span>
<br/><span>5. Oslo Municipal Collections, No.51 1925 or earlier</span>
<br/><span>This picture is sometimes tentatively dated 1916, because of the tradition just mentioned, but Arne Eggum believes that it may have been done later. The first definite proof of its existence is a photograph of Munch's studio at Ekely taken in 1925.</span>
<br/><span>6. Oslo Municipal Collections, No.52 1927</span>
<br/><span>Though this work is signed and dated 1926, the inscription was not added until after it had been exhibited at the Carnegie Institute in 1933 and seems to be incorrect. In a draft of a letter to Jens Thiis, Munch says that he painted the fifth (sic) version of 'The Sick Child' during the exhibition at the Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo, in 1927. </span>
<br/></blockquote>
<p>
<br/><span>There is also a colour <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/chalk" title="Glossary definition for 'Chalk'"><span>chalk</span></a> sketch on cardboard of </span><i>c</i><span>.1896 in a private collection. </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>The Tate's painting with its vivid green and red contrasts is bolder in colour than the earlier versions, and has larger brushstrokes. </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>The theme, together with that of 'Spring' of 1889 and several other paintings of later date, is said to have been inspired by the illness of Munch's elder sister Johanne Sofie, who died from tuberculosis in 1877 at the age of fifteen. The theory that 'The Sick Child' has some reference to his personal background is supported by the fact that Munch painted the earliest version not in his studio, but in the bedroom of his father's flat in Oslo, Schous Plass No.1. Munch's mother had died when the children were very small, and the woman by the bedside is Karen Bjølstad, the aunt who looked after the family in her stead. </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>It seems, however, that it would be rash to identify the sick child with Sofie without making reservations. The model for the child was a girl with red hair named Betzy Nielsen, who in 1885 was aged eleven. She had her eightieth birthday on 3 February 1954. On 1 February 1954 the Oslo newspaper </span><i>Aftenposten</i><span>
(evening edition) published an interview with her in which she gave information that throws a new light on the first version of this work. Munch's father was a doctor in the east end of Oslo, and in the winter of 1885 he was called to the house of Betzy's parents, because her five-year-old brother had broken his leg. Edvard accompanied his father on this visit, and while the doctor was occupied with the patient, Edvard watched Betzy, who was sitting in a chair in the same room, broken down with grief over the pain of her small brother. Before they left, Edvard asked Betzy's mother to be allowed to paint her daughter, and was given permission to do so. She posed for 'The Sick Child' (1885-6), 'The Girl with Red Hair' (1885), 'The Girl with a Tame White Rat' (1886) and 'Spring' (1889). </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>Probably, therefore, the two incidents in some way fused: the sight of Betzy in her despair reminded him of the sickness and death of Sofie eight years before. </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>Munch himself has written at some length about 'The Sick Child' in a statement published in his booklet </span><i>Livsfrisens tilblivelse</i><span> (The Origin of the Frieze of Life), Oslo </span><i>c</i><span>.1929. His words 'When I saw the sick child for the first time - the pale head with the very red hair against the white pillow' imply again that he was 'inspired' by Betzy. Johanne Sofie seems not to have had red hair. The statement is concerned mainly with the difficulties which he experienced in retaining the first impression - 'the trembling mouth - the transparent skin - the tired eyes' -in the course of painting. He said: 'I scraped off half the background and let everything stand in masses ... I also discovered that my own eyelashes had their part in the pictorial impression. I therefore faintly indicated them as shadows across the picture. In a way, the head became the picture. Wavy-lines emerged in the picture - peripheries - with the head as centre ... I painted 3 different [versions]. They are all dissimilar and each makes its special contribution to the first impression ... In the sick child I opened for myself a new path - it was a breakthrough in my art. Most of what I have done since had its birth in this picture'. The first version of 'The Sick Child' represented in fact a new departure in his art, and estranged the majority of the critics, who until then had been favourable. </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>Munch was one of the artists whose works were condemned by the Nazis as '<a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/d/degenerate-art" title="Glossary definition for 'Degenerate art'"><span>degenerate art</span></a>'. All works by him from German museums (including this picture, from the Dresden Gallery) were collected in the Schloss Schönhausen, Berlin, and sold in November 1938 to foreign dealers. </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>This picture also has a circular stamp on the stretcher of the 'Göteborgs Tullbehandlings Expedition', evidently a dispatching office for rolled-up bundles (tull). Munch exhibited several times in Gothenburg, notably in 1923 when he showed 28 paintings, but it has not been possible to identify which exhibition this refers to. </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>(This entry has been compiled with the help of Arne Brenna, Arne Eggum and Carla Lathe). </span>
<br/></p>
<p><b>Published in:</b>
<br/><span>Ronald Alley, </span><i>Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists</i><span>, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, pp.548-50, reproduced p.548</span>
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-09-15T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
adults bed bedroom birth to death Bjolstad, Karen children consumption death diseases and conditions domestic emotions and human qualities emotions, concepts and ideas furnishings girl grief illness individuals: female interiors named individuals Nielsen, Betzy objects people portraits society woman