Couples spin on a beach while dancing in the sunlight, as if all the forces of destruction could not harm them: For Edvard Munch, this motif was one of the most important elements in his painted "Poems of Life, Love and Death".

This is what the Norwegian artist called the cycle of paintings that he created over the decades in several versions, compilations and spin-offs, which he finally gave the title "Life Frieze".

Munch's famous "Scream" also belonged to the body of work, the origin of which is probably a series of paintings first exhibited in Berlin in 1893.

Ursula Scheer

Editor in the Feuilleton.

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After Paris, the German capital was the second center of the avant-garde to which Munch moved from the Scandinavian outskirts: mentally worn down by "sickness, madness and death", which he wanted to have seen "like black angels" in his cradle, in the sphere of influence more destructive Love affairs and drinking, but finally as an artist who attracted attention.

Ever since an exhibition of Munch's paintings, vilified as "unfinished", provoked such a scandal in the Berlin Artists' Association in 1892 that it had to be closed just a few days after it opened - which helped found the Secession - the Norwegian artist had had a name in Berlin.

Breakthrough in Berlin

Greats of cultural life like Max Reinhardt became aware of him.

In 1906, as director of the Deutsches Theater, the director commissioned the painter to paint a “frieze of life” for the foyer of the new Kammerspiele.

By the end of 1907, Munch had created twelve canvas paintings that hung directly under the ceiling. To create the impression of frescoes, he painted with tempera on unprimed canvas.

The result is particularly airy, powdery and delicate-looking paintings.

One of them will crown the "Modern & Contemporary Evening Auction" at Sotheby's in London on March 1st in London.

On the more than four meters wide and only ninety centimeters high “Dance on the Beach” (Dans pa Stranden) from the Reinhardt frieze, pastel tones evoke a cheerful and melancholic atmosphere.

On a tree-lined stretch of coast – Munch always takes it to Åsgårdstrand on the Oslofjord – the dancers in the middle of the picture face a dark female figure on the right.

Her bright counterpart on the left is a female figure with flowers.

Both can refer to Munch's unhappy amours, but they also stand symbolically for beginning and end, joy and sorrow, life and death.

There is no such thing as lasting happiness in Munch's pictorial world – and the further course of this painting also leads through the vicissitudes of existence.

As early as 1912, Munch's chamber theater frieze fell victim to a redesign as a whole, was taken down and sold through the Fritz Gurlitt gallery.

Even then, prices skyrocketed when they switched to the secondary market: Reinhardt had paid Munch 4,000 marks, the gallery owner probably had to put out 30,000 marks, and by 1914 it was already being said that each picture in the cycle was worth around 25,000 marks.

Nine of the paintings made their way back to Berlin via many stations and are now part of the National Gallery's collection;

others were able to secure the Folkwang Museum in Essen and the Hamburger Kunsthalle.

Only the "Dance on the Beach" is still privately owned.

If a public institution wanted to buy it, it would have to invest heavily: the estimated price is between 12 and 20 million pounds.