Nudes and drawings of naked people formed part of Munch’s artistic repertoire throughout his career. But work from the model gathered pace particularly after he settled in Norway permanently and had enough money to enable him to hire models on a relatively permanent basis. Many of the hundreds of drawings of nudes that he left are rapid sketches, like a dancer’s conscientious daily practising of the basic exercises, the prerequisite of being able to perform a complete ballet. Nevertheless, many of Munch’s studies of models are executed with such sensitivity that they are raised far above the purely routine. His almost intuitive ability to “see” an individual’s personality and give it graphic form had made him much sought-after for portraits. And this was not an ability he could simply turn off, even when he was “only” drawing models. An example of this is Standing blue nude (MM.T.01072), in which posture, facial expression and accents of colour in an otherwise wholly blue figure all make this an expressive portrait, not of a model but of an individual.

A lively, quick and often playful touch characterizes most of his drawings of nudes. And the watercolour brush joined in the game, as we see in Model undressing (RES.B.00124). A pose the model perhaps held only for a second or two, or which the artist froze onto his inner eye – executed swiftly and impulsively in crayon and brush, but with the assurance of the sleepwalker where technique and composition are concerned: vertical, diagonal and horizontal strokes counterbalance one another, heavy strokes against lighter ones, cold colours against warm. Gracious, elegant and executed with a light, playful touch. All the hard work, the preparation, the drafts and the errors are here as a precondition, but unseen.

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