Art Oslo
Museums
A bequest to the city
When Edvard Munch died in 1944 he left almost everything in his possession — some 28,000 works across paintings, prints, drawings and photographs — to the city of Oslo. That single act of generosity is the foundation of the museum. For decades the collection was housed in a modest 1963 building at Tøyen; in 2021 it moved to a thirteen-storey tower on the Bjørvika waterfront, its upper floors leaning deliberately toward the fjord.
The building
Designed by the Madrid studio Estudio Herreros, the perforated aluminium tower is one of the most discussed buildings in Scandinavia — admired and argued over in equal measure. Inside, the galleries spiral upward, leaving the lower floors for the largest crowds and reserving quiet, light-controlled rooms higher up for the most fragile works on paper.
More than one Scream
Munch made several versions of his most famous image, and the museum holds painted, drawn and printed examples. For conservation reasons they are shown in rotation, so that no single version is ever exposed to light for too long — part of the reason a return visit always reveals something new.
What to see
- The rotating display of The Scream and Madonna
- The monumental Aula studies and late self-portraits
- The print workshop and Munch's own experimental techniques
- Panoramic fjord views from the upper galleries
I do not paint what I see, but what I saw.
