A monumental work by Edvard Munch goes up for auction at Sotheby's: it's the Dance on the Beach

A monumental canvas by Edvard Munch, more than four meters wide, will go up for auction at Sotheby’s in London on March 1, with an estimate of $15-25 million. It is Dance on the Beach, the principal work in the Reinhardt Frieze, a series of paintings that Munch was commissioned to paint for the walls of impresario Max Reinhardt ’s avant-garde theater in Berlin: twelve large canvases for an installation that, according to Sotheby’s, pioneered the relationship between performance and art.

The Dance on the Beach is the only example of the Reinhardt series that remains in private hands-all the others are in German museum collections. The painting was last put on the market 89 years ago, when it was purchased at auction by Thomas Olsen, who amassed an unparalleled collection of some 30 works by the artist, including one of four versions of the celebrated Scream. Identified as a work once owned by Professor Curt Glaser, a leading cultural figure in 1930s Berlin who was forced to flee, it was sold by mutual agreement between the two families. The sale of Munch’s work will be the highlight of Sotheby’s Modern & Contemporary Evening Sale in London on March 1. Prior to the sale, the painting will be on public display for the first time since 1979, with an exhibition in London (Feb. 22-March 1), as well as digital installations in Hong Kong (Feb. 5-7) and New York (Feb. 11-15).

“Munch was the ultimate rebel, and every brushstroke in this frieze is thoroughly modern and purely expressive,” says Simon Shaw, vice president of Sotheby’s. "This composition reinvents one of Munch’s greatest images, the Dance of Life, which was the culmination of the artist’s Frieze of Life and places love at the center of the artist’s ’modern life of the soul.’ Its first version dates from 1899-1900 and is displayed alongside the iconic Scream in the National Gallery in Oslo. This work is among the greatest of all expressionist masterpieces remaining in private hands: its shattering emotional impact remains as powerful today as it was in 1906."

“This exceptional painting is made all the more special by its extraordinary provenance, a history that has unfolded since it was painted 115 years ago,” says Lucian Simmons, vice president and global head of restitutions at Sotheby’s. “Woven into the story of this painting are two families, both important patrons of Munch. In fact, the Glasers and the Olsens were so important to Munch that he painted both Henrietta Olsen and Elsa Glaser (wives of Thomas and Curt). We are proud to play a role in the next chapter of the painting as we celebrate the legacy of the patrons who were integral in supporting the vision of such a great artist.”

The Dance on the Beach, as mentioned, was originally commissioned by world-renowned film and theater director Max Reinhardt, whose productions were deeply influenced by Munch’s works. In 1906, Reinhardt asked Munch to create a frieze for his avant-garde theater in Berlin. Set up in a room on the theater’s upper floor, the audience was immersed in Munch’s vision before entering Reinhardt’s performance space. This energetic and rhythmic work was the culmination of the cycle, the most important of the works that make up the frieze, executed on the largest scale and the only one signed in full. There is a tangible sense of movement that is unique to this work, with couples dancing across the canvas. It is also the only part of the frieze cycle remaining in private hands, with nine of the pieces held in the collection of the National Gallery in Berlin, one in the Kunsthalle in Hamburg and one in the Folkwang Museum in Essen.

Munch had an immensely sad childhood, beginning with the death of his mother when he was five years old, followed by the death of his older sister nine years later, both from tuberculosis. His older sister spent most of her life in a psychiatric hospital, while his father suffered from severe depression. This trauma caused Munch to feel separated from life, watching instead “the dance of life through a window.” The Dance on the Beach captures that sense of life unfolding before his eyes. In the foreground, two of his greatest loves appear in the canvas: Tulla Larsen and Millie Thaulow. With the former, Munch had a turbulent relationship, while the latter was his cousin’s wife and also his first love. The work was painted shortly before an acute breakdown in 1908 that forced the artist to spend time in a clinic in Copenhagen. Upon his return to Norway, Munch’s art changedv focusing on landscape and local characters.

When the theater was renovated in 1912, the frieze was dismembered and this work was purchased by the famous art historian and curator Curt Glaser, who was a friend and biographer of the artist, and at the time was director of the Berlin State Art Library. Together with his wife, Glaser assembled an outstanding art collection that included works by Munch, Henri Matisse, and Max Beckmann along with important old paintings. In 1917 Glaser published the first German monograph on Edvard Munch. Persecuted by the Nazis for his Jewish origins, Glaser fled Germany in 1933 and was forced to sell this work, along with many others. Glaser’s legacy is currently being celebrated by an exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Basel, which until Feb. 12, 2023, is showing 200 works together for the first time since they were dispersed in 1933.

The Dance on the Beach ended up at an auction house in Oslo in 1934 where it was purchased by another of Munch’s friends and patrons, his neighbor Thomas Olsen. Olsen hung the painting in the first-class lounge of his passenger ship, the MS Black Watch, which traveled between Oslo and Newcastle from January to September 1939. After Britain declared war on Germany, Olsen removed the artwork and decommissioned the ship in anticipation of the German invasion. The boat was later seized by the Germans, but the artwork was recovered after the war and has remained the property of the Olsen family ever since.

A monumental work by Edvard Munch goes up for auction at Sotheby's: it's the Dance on the Beach

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