From Karl Johan

Karl Johans gate is Oslo's main ceremonial boulevard, and Munch returned to it as a pictorial subject throughout his career. This 1889 canvas — one of his earliest Karl Johan paintings — shows the street in an ordinary condition, without the psychological distortion that would characterise later works in the series. Munch was in Paris on a state scholarship in 1889, and this work reflects observations made before his departure, capturing the street life of the Norwegian capital at the close of the 1880s. The Munch Museum in Oslo holds extensive holdings across all periods of his long career.

This early Karl Johan canvas shows Munch working in a relatively conventional Post-Impressionist idiom before he fully developed the expressive distortions of his mature style. Figures are individuated but not yet stylised into psychological types.