The Book Family

The Book Family by Edvard Munch from 1901, held at the Thiel Gallery in Stockholm, depicts members of the Book family — Swedish patrons whose connections brought Munch into contact with the Stockholm cultural world. Ernest Thiel, who founded the gallery bearing his name, was among Munch's most important Scandinavian collectors and supporters, and the Thiel family's commission or acquisition of this group portrait reflects that relationship. Group portraits were relatively rare in Munch's output, and this family composition gave him the opportunity to explore individual character within a familial context — how people relate to each other in the formal arrangement of a posed portrait.

Munch organizes the group composition around the relationships between figures rather than strict perspectival arrangement, using his characteristic expressive line and tonal modulation to differentiate individual presences within the group. The palette and handling are consistent with his portraiture of the early 1900s.