Nude with Long Red Hair

Nude with Long Red Hair by Edvard Munch from 1902, held at the Munch Museum, is among his most distinctive nude paintings by virtue of the sitter's dramatically unusual hair — the long red hair that cascades down her back or shoulders creating a powerful chromatic element within the composition. Red hair had symbolic associations in northern European culture and art — with sexuality, danger, and the supernatural — that Munch would certainly have been aware of. His earlier works, such as the famous Vampire imagery, had explored red hair as a visual metaphor for female power and threat. In this more straightforward nude study, the red hair remains a compositionally and emotionally charged element.

Munch exploits the vivid red of the hair as a dominant chromatic element that gives the figure its immediate visual identity. The warm red-orange of the hair against the cooler, more neutral tones of the nude body creates a striking contrast that animates the composition beyond conventional nude study.