What year did Edvard Munch die?

Edvard Munch died in 1944.

The Norwegian painter died on 23 January 1944 at his home, Ekely, in Oslo. He was 80 years old. His final illness followed a respiratory infection after the explosions at an ammunition depot in Oslo in December 1943, an event he observed and later represented in the painting Explosion.

Munch’s death occurred during the German occupation of Norway. The Nazi authorities organized a prominent state funeral despite his preference for a private cremation, using the occasion for propaganda. This later contributed to mistaken assumptions that Munch sympathized with Nazism, although his relationship with the regime was far more complicated and his art had been labeled “degenerate” by the Nazis.

After his death, Munch’s remaining works were bequeathed to the city of Oslo. That collection became the foundation of the Munch Museum, which opened in 1963 and holds the world’s largest collection of his art.