Autograph letter signed (‘Edvard Munch’) to [?his publisher, Bruno Cassirer] ('Sehr geehrter Herr'), n.p. [?Berlin], n.d. [1894]

Edvard Munch (1863-1944)
Autograph letter signed (‘Edvard Munch’) to [?his publisher, Bruno Cassirer] ('Sehr geehrter Herr'), n.p. [?Berlin], n.d. [1894]
In German. Four pages, 138mm x 212mm, bifolium, a number of words cancelled. Provenance: Sotheby's, 9 & 10 May 1985, lot 329.

Offering biographical details about himself and his family, discussing his studies in Paris with Bonat, and mentioning his controversial Berlin exhibition of 1893. Munch discusses his family before noting the controversy of his exhibition which ‘gave occasion to a great debate' as well as its effect: ‘The group of artists was split and 104 of them have formed an independent union (my paintings were ruled out by majority). With a few other painters I have arranged the first independent exhibition this year’. Munch lists the whereabouts of a number of his paintings and concludes the letter by excusing his bad German.

Cassirer was a prominent art dealer and publisher based in Berlin. The pair had a working relationship, with Munch creating a portrait of Cassirer’s daughter in 1906.