Edvard Munch: The Frieze of Life

Munch's Frieze of Life series encompasses his principal paintings of the 1890s, including The Scream, Death in the Sickroom and The Dance of Life ; in it the Norwegian expressionist grappled with themes of anxiety, death and love . This superbly illustrated catalogue of an exhibit at the National Gallery in London reproduces all the paintings in the series, along with many other key pictures, from the nervous Self Portrait with Cigarette (1895) to The Death of Marat I (1907). In essays, various scholars probe the connection between Munch's existentialist art and his life (1963-1944), which was marked by traumas, mental illness, restless traveling and alcoholism. There is much enlightening material about Munch's bohemian years in Oslo and in Berlin, where he was drawn to anarchism and free love and joined a circle of artists and writers that included August Strindberg. Wood is gallery director at the University of Northumbria, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. (Mar.)