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Lot Essay
The seemingly simple scene of Separation II is charged with all the contradicting feelings towards women which Edvard Munch expressed repeatedly, almost obsessively, in some of his most celebrated paintings and prints. Perhaps prompted by an actual separation and then recalled in a dream, Munch described the scene in his notes thus: 'she walked slowly towards the sea - farther and farther away - and then something very strange occurred - I felt as if there were invisible threads connecting us - I felt the invisible strands of her hair still winding around me - and thus as she disappeared completely beyond the sea - I still felt it, felt the pain where my heart was bleeding - because the threads could not be severed.' (Quoted by D. Buchart in: K. A. Schröder, A. Hoerschelmann (eds.), Edvard Munch - Theme and Variation, Albertina, Vienna, 2003, p. 167 [Munch Museet T 2782-I]).
Perhaps more than any other modern artist, Edvard Munch sought to turn his fraught emotional life into emblematic images, and it seems that the technical rigour of printmaking - as opposed to the more gestural freedom of painting - allowed him to further condense and simplify his compositions. In his best prints, medium and subject-matter mirror each other perfectly: the imagery of Separation II, as Jay Clark acutely observed, 'seems to almost echo the basic principles of lithography - attraction and repulsion - in human terms.' (Jay A. Clark, Becoming Edvard Munch - Influence, Anxiety and Myth, Art Institute of Chicago, 2009, p. 136).
Separation II is the result of Munch's early experiments with transfer lithography. Rather than using the flat surface of a stone or transfer sheet, he used a sheet of paper placed over a rough piece of cloth. The lines of his crayon thus picked up the uneven texture of the cloth, which lends the image, once transferred onto the lithographic stone and printed, the depth and transparency so apparent in the present impression. Although the evidence remains inconclusive, it was probably printed by Lasally in Berlin around 1906-09, as a few other impressions printed in dark blue on thin Japan paper are inscribed with the name of that printer.
Perhaps more than any other modern artist, Edvard Munch sought to turn his fraught emotional life into emblematic images, and it seems that the technical rigour of printmaking - as opposed to the more gestural freedom of painting - allowed him to further condense and simplify his compositions. In his best prints, medium and subject-matter mirror each other perfectly: the imagery of Separation II, as Jay Clark acutely observed, 'seems to almost echo the basic principles of lithography - attraction and repulsion - in human terms.' (Jay A. Clark, Becoming Edvard Munch - Influence, Anxiety and Myth, Art Institute of Chicago, 2009, p. 136).
Separation II is the result of Munch's early experiments with transfer lithography. Rather than using the flat surface of a stone or transfer sheet, he used a sheet of paper placed over a rough piece of cloth. The lines of his crayon thus picked up the uneven texture of the cloth, which lends the image, once transferred onto the lithographic stone and printed, the depth and transparency so apparent in the present impression. Although the evidence remains inconclusive, it was probably printed by Lasally in Berlin around 1906-09, as a few other impressions printed in dark blue on thin Japan paper are inscribed with the name of that printer.