Mural Paintings In Oslo
Edvard Munch’s Work in Oil

By Alma Luise Olson. Oslo.

The suggestion that Edvard Munch’s oil frieze, called "Work," will find a permanent place in the new Oslo Town Hall, when it is built, is of interest. (In parenthesis: the cornerstone has been laid for the building and the published plans reveal strikingly modernistic and pleasing effects; whole city squares are being laid low to make room for it and the house wreckers are coming dangerously near the historic house near the National Theatre where Ibsen once lived. By the time these lines are in print this attempt at a breathless protest will probably come too late!)
Though Munch does not work in fresco, as all remember who are familiar with his wall paintings in the university "aula," he does achieve monumental effect. He also does "architectural paintings" with his own medium, to quote Arne Nygaard Nilssen, who tells a detailed story of modern Norwegian fresco painting in a valuable and richly illustrated monograph. Somehow, murals as art expression seem indigenous to this country, where almost every town or village is hemmed in by mountain walls on which nature lavishes a whole prism of green, in all the varying shades, each season with advent of Spring.

New York Times. Mar 20, 1932.

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