Creator Death Place: Jarlsborgveien 14, Oslo. Norway
Creator Birth Place: Løten, Hedmark. Norway
Date Created: 1896
Physical Dimensions: w571 x h432 mm
Description: This lithograph was printed in 1896, ten years after he painted the first version of the motif with the same name. In the same year he also made a new version of the painting, commissioned by the Norwegian art collector Olaf Schou.
The lithograph differs from the painted versions in that here we only see the child’s head and face resting on the pillow.
The lithograph, made with the help of various lithographic tools on stone, was printed at August Clot’s printing press in Paris.
The sick child was printed in a number of different colour combinations, and the series is regarded as Edvard Munch’s masterwork in colour lithography.
Munch’s good friend, the German painter and graphic artist Paul Herrmann has described how the printing process was carried out
Herrmann:
…The lithographic stones were already lying in a row beside each other, ready to be printed. Munch arrived , stood in front of the row, closed his eyes and directed the procedure with a finger in the air without opening his eyes..
Munch:
Print grey, green, blue, brown…
Herrmann:
Then he opened his eyes and said to me…
Munch:
Come on, let’s go and have a snaps.
Herrmann:
Then the printer printed until Munch came back, and, with his eyes closed, gave more orders again…
Munch:
Yellow, pink, red…
Herrmann:
And this procedure was repeated a couple more times…