Landowner in the Park

Landowner in the Park by Edvard Munch from 1903, confiscated from the 'degenerate art' collection — indicating Nazi seizure in 1937 — depicts a bourgeois property owner in a formal or informal park setting. Munch was deeply interested in the social hierarchy of his time and painted numerous bourgeois sitters whose class position was evident in their physical bearing and the settings he placed them in. A landowner — someone whose identity was rooted in property and the land itself — set in a park or garden, the controlled natural space that was emblematic of their wealth, made a quietly pointed social observation. The fact that this work was seized by the Nazis as 'degenerate' underscores how Munch's art was perceived as a challenge to conventional values.

Munch renders the figure in the outdoor setting with his characteristic combination of psychological intensity in the face and more broadly painted environmental elements. The park setting gives him an opportunity to use his expressive greens and dappled light effects as a counterpart to the sitter's studied composure.