Edvard Munch 12th December, 1863 - 23rd January, 1944

Edvard Munch is a Norwegian born, expressionist painter, and printer. In the late 20th century, he played a great role in German expressionism, and the art form that later followed; namely because of the strong mental anguish that was displayed in many of the pieces that he created.

He was raised by his father who suffered with mental illness, which is part of the reason why his work took a deeper tone, and why the artist was known to have so many repressed emotions as he grew up. A lot of his pieces focus on issues of life and death, as he lost both his mother and sister to tuberculosis at a young age, and feared he would suffer the same mental illnesses as the rest of his family.

He spent some time in Paris and was greatly influenced by impressionism artists Claude Monet, Edouard Manet, and followed by Van Gogh, Paul Cezanne, and Gauguin. In fact, the main style of Munch's work is post-impressionism.