Sun Flower (The Linde Frieze)

Sun Flower (The Linde Frieze) was among the decorative panels Munch made for the Linde commission in 1904, depicting a sunflower — that most heliotropic and symbolically charged of plants — as a motif that could anchor a decorative interior program with both natural beauty and symbolic resonance. Sunflowers had a particular history in Post-Impressionist art, most famously from Van Gogh's series, and Munch's deployment of the motif in a decorative context acknowledged this precedent while adapting it to the Scandinavian light and the specific requirements of Linde's interior. The work's current location is untraced, separate from the main Linde Frieze panels held at the Munch Museum.

Munch treats the sunflower with the bold simplification appropriate to a decorative motif, the large flower head and its surrounding foliage rendered in broad planes of yellow, green, and warm brown that create a strong visual impact at the distance appropriate to interior decoration. The handling is deliberately flat and pattern-oriented.