The Kiss
1898
Medium
woodcut printed from two blocks in black and gray on heavy brown paper [1902 printing]
Dimensions
image: 47 x 45.1 cm (18 1/2 x 17 3/4 in.) sheet: 60.7 x 59.3 cm (23 7/8 x 23 3/8 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-E
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
The Epstein Family Collection
Accession Number
1990.26.1
Art Historical Context
Edvard Munch’s *The Kiss* (1898) captures an intimate embrace in which two figures seem to dissolve into one another, their faces merging in a moment of quiet intensity. Created during Munch’s most fertile period in Berlin and Paris, the print belongs to his “Frieze of Life” cycle, a series exploring the fundamental emotions of love, anxiety, and isolation. The 1902 impression, printed from two woodblocks in black and gray on heavy brown paper, heightens the work’s brooding atmosphere; the textured paper absorbs the ink, softening contours and lending the scene a dreamlike quality. Munch was ...
About the Artist
Edvard Munch · 1863–1944
Edvard Munch (1863-1944) was a Norwegian painter and printmaker whose intensely psychological works made him a pioneer of Expressionism and one of the most influential artists of the modern era. His 1893 masterpiece 'The Scream' has become an iconic symbol of existential anxiety. Munch's art was profoundly shaped by personal tragedy—his mother died when he was five, his beloved sister Sophie at fo...