Ludvig Karsten at The Munch Museum

johnwilliammitchel
Jan 29
5 min read

This was the one that convinced me that Ludvig Karsten had it in him to be as great as anyone ever.

John Mitchell

January 29, 2026

Red Hair (1907), Oil on canvas, 47 x 58.7 cm

The Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway currently has an exhibition titled “LUDVIG KARSTEN RESTLESS” up through March 15, 2026 including over 70 paintings.

I’d never heard of Ludvig Karsten and was not familiar with the work. In anticipation of visiting the show for the first time in December, I felt excited about the prospect of entering an unfamiliar world of paintings made by a Norwegian artist born in 1876, who dedicated his adult life to painting, traveled extensively, and died after falling down a flight of stairs in October, 1926.

Walking into the first room, the zeitgeist of his era is immediately clear. He studied with Matisse and was friendly with Picasso among many other painters. The influence of French Impressionism, Post Impressionism, and early 20^th Century painting by his contemporaries is abundantly present in his work. Though he was a lifelong student, he wasn’t only a student of his time. He made many transcriptions of older master paintings by people like Rembrandt van Rijn, Jusepe de Ribera, and Jacopo Bassono as well. The best copy in the exhibition is of Gilles, after Jean-Antoine Watteau. And it’s notable that he made this painting as a mature painter, in his final year at the age of 50. As with the other copies in the show, it is evident that he's not only copying. His versions are made through the filter of his time and his restless imagination and they stand apart from their forebears as distinctly unique paintings.

Of all the influences apparent in Ludvig Karsten’s work, Edvard Munch seems to have been the most dominant presence in his mind. There are paintings in this exhibition that almost look like they could be Edvard Munch paintings. And in fact, Ludvig and Edvard were friends for a period of time. But that friendship seems to have ended in a violent fist-fight in Åsgårdstrand, Norway in 1905. A fight that inspired a group of terrific works by Edvard later.

As far as I have been able to find, Ludvig never made a transcription after Diego Velazquez, but he did spend significant time in Madrid. Standing in front of some of Diego’s monumental paintings at The Prado, I have been surprised to see thick seams running through the paintings. Las Meninas for example, is made of three heavy fabric pieces sewn together. And there are two rugged vertical scar-like seams running from top to bottom. I thought about those seams while looking at Ludvig’s painting of Gilles, after Jean-Antoine. It looks like a vertical piece of linen has been added to the right side of this painting, creating a vertical seam from top to bottom. But sometimes, he seems to be using the seam to divide paintings, treating each zone differently. I can’t recall ever having seen anyone else from Ludvig’s lifetime or before do anything like that. In “White-Clad Man in Skagen Landscape” for example, there’s a horizontal patch added below the walking man’s ankle and that part of the painting is painted in a distinctly different manner than the bigger zone above the seam. And in a painting titled “Tapestry” from 1911, there’s a strong horizontal gap above the middle horizon line, as if the painting were painted on a board that snapped in half and was then put back together in a roughshod way. But the title plate says this is a painting on canvas. Which made me look harder. How could that be? Did Ludvig do that on purpose? What was he thinking? However “Tapestry” came to be that way, the gnarly horizontal gap between these two abutted panels works to enliven the painting by challenging the illusion and asserting its object-ness.

Another painting titled “Self-Portrait” from 1909 looks like a painting he must have made after looking at Pierre Bonnard’s late self-portraits. The only problem is, Pierre’s late self-portraits were made long after Ludvig’s death, in the 1930’s and into the 1940’s. Which makes me rethink everything I’ve ever thought about Pierre Bonnard. I’d never considered the influence of Norwegian painting on Pierre Bonnard, but it’s there! This realization sent me into a fantasy of a Ludvig Karsten/Bonnard show! Or at the very least, considering The Munch Museum has mounted many pairing exhibitions in recent years, for example of Edvard Munch and Vincent van Gogh, Edvard Munch and Jasper Johns, Edvard Munch and Francisco Goya, etc. – I’d settle for a paired exhibition of Edvard Munch and Pierre Bonnard. Although, a pairing of Ludvig Karsten and Pierre Bonnard would be even more exciting. I’d love to see Ludvig’s 1909 self-portrait hanging next to one of the great late Pierre self-portraits.

There are some stinkers in this show too. Paintings like “Two Boys” from 1914 and “Betty Kirkeby with Her Daughter” from 1912, feel to me like paintings motivated by impulses that didn’t sustain his engagement throughout the duration of the making of those paintings. He seems to have run out of steam or didn’t care enough and they feel soft in a bad way.

There’s one timeless painting in the show, that stands way above everything else. I have the feeling that he must have been completely possessed by the making of this painting. I stood looking at it long enough to listen to Willie Nelson’s entire “Red Headed Stranger” album on my headphones and then came back the next day and did the same thing again. “Red Hair” from 1907 is an incredible painting. I’ve never seen a stronger head in a painting. The red-headed man’s shadow is an anchor and his two teeny front teeth, like two little tombstones or as I found myself thinking of them, his two “Nosferatu’s” – draw you down into a very particular psychological intensity unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. In this painting, he has devoured and digested his influences and transcended his time. Through dogged determination and extreme observation, he got into a slipstream with this red-headed man and as a result, they both still live in this painting. This was the one that convinced me that Ludvig Karsten had it in him to be as great as anyone ever.