1. Edvard Munch
(1863-1944)

Tiger and Bear

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Munch, Tiger and Bear

Tiger and Bear

Lithograph, 1908-9, from Alpha and Omega, 240 x 465 mm., Schiefler 317. Fine impression on heavy wove paper with full margins, signed in pencil; repaired tear in the blank margin. The eighth plate in the portfolio Alpha and Omega, depicting the encounter between the two animals. Other animals are sketched in the tree-lined background, together with Alpha and Omega themselves. Munch worked on the series in 1908 while he was confined to a sanitarium after a mental breakdown. In it, and in the story he wrote on which it was based, he expressed many of his own psychological problems, especially those of his relations with women. Alpha and Omega are a kind of Adam and Eve, living on an island with animals, and Omega is unfaithful to Alpha with one animal after another. In this image, the tiger catches the scent of Omega on the bear and the two fight and tear each other to pieces. Eventually, Alpha also kills Omega. These images were created at the most stressful time of Munch’s life and they will be the subject of study and interpretation for years to come.