In the manner of Edvard Munch
Norwegian, 1863–1944
Typing…, 2026
Oil and tempera on cardboard
91 × 73 cm
Never painted.
Commissioned for the collection, 2026.
PAB 2026.13.2
She sits at the table with her hands pressed to her face, staring down at the phone, where three dots glow and glow. The floorboards ripple, the walls sway, and her shadow stands up behind her twice her size. Munch painted jealousy, fear and the sickroom as weather inside a room. He would have known this one at once. It is the longest thirty seconds in the world.
The brief
A young woman alone in a dim room staring down at a phone on the table, three grey dots glowing on its screen, the walls and floor swaying, her shadow huge behind her, bare walls with nothing hanging on them, no window, no other figure. 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.
