In the manner of Edvard Munch
Norwegian, 1863–1944
The Dance of Life, Filmed, 2026
Oil and tempera on cardboard
91 × 73 cm
Never painted.
Commissioned for the collection, 2026.
PAB 2026.13.5
Couples turn on the shore under a low moon and its column of light on the water, and at the left a young woman in white stands apart, filming them. At the right a woman in black watches her do it. Munch's *Dance of Life* sets a woman in white and a woman in black at either end of the dance, hope and grief. The one in white has found something to do.
The brief
Couples dancing on a shore at midsummer night under a low moon, one woman in white at the edge filming them on a phone, one in black watching her. Norwegian Expressionist painting in thin oil and tempera on rough board, long undulating strokes that bend sky, water and floorboards into waves, sickly blood-orange and deep blue and acid green, one pale mask-like face with hollow eyes and no other faces anywhere, bare cardboard showing through the paint, raw emotional distortion, a sense of dread. Flat frontal reproduction of the painting, the canvas fills the frame edge to edge, even lighting, no frame, no wall, no text.
Written to the house rules. The painter's name does not appear.
Take it home
The painting on this room's wall, at its own proportions, nothing written on it.
