The Tale of Edvard Munch & Tulla Larsen
On the danger of mixing money, love, sex and desire
Letters from Vienna #63
The Tale of Edvard Munch & Tulla Larsen
Edward Lucie-Smith
“In 1893,” Edward Lucie-Smith wrote “or perhaps a little earlier he (Edvard Munch 1863-1944), had just ended an affair with the rich and beautiful daughter of an Oslo wine-merchant, and was living outside Oslo at Åsgåardstrand. One stormy evening a boat full of friends arrived from a neighbouring village to tell him the girl was now dying and wanted to see him one last time. Munch agreed and arrived to find her lying in bed between two lighted candles. As soon as she saw him she rose and revealed that the whole thing had been a hoax. She then produced a revolver and threatened to kill herself if he didn’t return to her. Munch struggled to take the gun from her (believing that in any case it must be unloaded). It went off and shot away the top joint of his middle finger – fortunately, on the left hand.”[1]
Hans Dieter Huber
Hans Dieter Huber places the incident in 1902 and asserts that the lady in question, Tulla (Mathilde) Larsen, did in fact attempt suicide. Her friend, the painter Cecilie Dahl, wrote Munch a letter upon which the latter rented a sailboat (there were no steamboats on Sundays) and set off for Røyken. He spent the night there where he renewed his marriage proposal to Tulla the next day.
After he returned from Berlin they travelled together to Horton from where they continued on to Åsgåardstrand. Their initial reconciliation however grew into tumultuous confrontation. Munch accused Tulla of faking her suicide attempt, something Tulla vehemently denied.
On the 12th of September a shot was fired in the small hut. According to one version of events (Huber omits any others): Tulla, in desperation, tried to get hold of a pistol and Munch tried to wrest it from her. During the altercation a shot went off, wounding Munch. Munch, according to Huber, seemed not to have had any clear memory of what happened. He lay in his bed, half-asleep, smelt gunpowder and awoke to see Tulla clearing up the mess.[2]
Atle Naess
Atle Naess goes into considerably more detail about the complicated relationship between the two. Tulla and Edvard first met, according to the former, in Kristiania (rechristened Oslo in 1924) in August 1898, when she was twenty-nine years old, and he: thirty-four.[3]
They travelled together to Berlin, Paris and Florence but seem to have argued in the latter and gone their separate ways. Munch made it clear to Tulla that for him there was a clear choice between his work and her; and that the former had undoubtedly precedence. She wasn’t the right girl for him; she was young and healthy, while he, by contrast, was old, sick and lame; she, consequently, could never be happy with him. At the same time: he blamed her for the fact that their relationship had failed.[4]
In the autumn of 1899 he made a conditional proposal whereby they’d be married on paper (she’d adopt his surname and they’d live together) but that would be all. She’d make no sexual demands of him, which he found wearying, and they’d live together as brother and sister. Unsurprisingly, she was less than enthused by this prospect. In order to help her fill her time and for them to live more harmoniously he suggested books and techniques on how to create art; for him her obsession with sex was quite “unnatural”.[5]
On another occasion he stated that he could never live with anyone and that they could never live together, they being too different. She was akin to mother earth while he was the last of a dying breed. He needed his strength for his work and regarded her declarations of love as sheer egotism. In reality: she loved no one but herself.[6]
Tulla persevered and even dealt with all the paperwork for a marriage but Munch sabotaged her efforts through his carelessness.
Two years passed during which Munch was simply too cowardly to break with Tulla; he needed her money to survive but resented any mention of the fact.
In the summer of 1902 he received a visit from the painter Cecilie Dahl and the writer Sigurd Bødtker who both sought to persuade him to visit Tulla in Røyken; she was in a state of deep despair. In the night of August 23rd, Tulla emptied a bottle of morphine but was saved by the quick actions of Cecilie Dahl. Upon being informed Munch hired a man with a sailboat and crossed the fjord to Røyken, where he found Dahl and Bødtker.[7]
He imagined Tulla dead but found her alive, albeit weakened, and resolved to take her to Åsgåardstrand after a trip to Berlin. In Åsgåardstrand he got drunk and, in Atle Naess’s account, suddenly had a revolver in his hand without knowing quite why. In another version it was Tulla who got hold of the gun. The one thing certain is that a shot was fired and hit Munch’s middle finger of his left hand. Munch himself, according to Naess, had no clear memory of what exactly happened. He wrote that he lay on the bed, half-awake, bleeding and smelt gun powder. Naess indicates that it might well have been a suicide attempt on his part.[8]
Most intriguing of all is what Munch wrote himself, which deserves being quoted in full:
“A gentleman comes in
and sits down at a
table – a woman stands
stiff – cold – and pale behind
him – she says
one little word – moreover
a trivial one
immediately the man
collapses grabs
a revolver and shoots himself”[9]
Given the difficulties of his position – a penniless artist who regarded marriage as “hell” who felt he was being forced into a marriage against his will, it seems reasonable to assume that Munch tried to find an easy way out.
Of course, the variety of sources, the contradictions, confusions, distortions and lack of clarity, ought to make one wary of accepting a single narrative at any given point in time. Ultimately much of what has been written about this subject is merely informed opinion and speculation, some of higher quality, others worse.
The tale of Edvard Munch and Tulla Larson is a salutary one, which warns us about the danger of mixing money, love, sex and desire. Such a cocktail can prove fatal for either party; a healthy balance and independence between the sexes is best.
[1] p.9 Lives of the Great Twentieth Century Artists, Edward Lucie-Smith
[2] p.107 Edvard Munch Tanz des Lebens, Hans Dieter Huber
[3] p.200 Edvard Munch Eine Biografie, Atle Naess
[4] p.217 Ibid
[5] p.220 Ibid
[6] p.223 Ibid
[7] p.257 Ibid
[8] pp.258-262 Ibid
[9] pp.147-148 The Private Journals of Edvard Munch