In the manner of Edvard Munch
Norwegian, 1863–1944
By the Charging Cable, 2026
Oil and tempera on cardboard
91 × 73 cm
Never painted.
Commissioned for the collection, 2026.
PAB 2026.13.4
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A pale girl sits propped in a chair by the window, where the sun is coming up red over the water and her phone is charging on the sill. The woman beside her bows her head so low we cannot see her face. Munch painted his dying sister again and again for forty years, scraping the paint back each time. The cable is new to this room. The rest of it is his.
The brief
A pale girl propped in a chair by a window, a phone charging on the sill beside her, a woman with bowed head at her side, thin scraped paint, dawn light. 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.
