1919-1944
Dissolution and the Temporary in Munch’s Late Work

In January 1916, Munch bought the estate of Ekely, in Skøyen, west of Kristiania, where he would spend most of his time until his death. He now began to focus on his immediate environment in landscapes, garden pictures, and interiors. Yet he also continued to treat other themes, such as the relationship between the sexes, and the seducer or artist as a social outsider. In The Kiss on the Beach, the lovers’ faces merge into a single, amorphous shape, which is echoed in the tree limb to the right.