Comment:
During the last thirty years of his life Munch had many dogs, dogs that he was fond of and depicted in paintings, prints and drawings. In the years around 1920, however, he was in an ongoing quarrel with his neighbour Axel Gunnerud, who had a dog with a rather broad perception of the boundaries of his owner’s property. It fiercely attacked the postman, the milk boy – and Munch. After repeated police reports, petitions and heated arguments, the whole matter tapered off. But for Munch the feud lived on in writing and pictures at least up until 1940. Rolle, the name of Gunnerud’s dog, was actually an ordinary farm dog of middle size, but in many of Munch’s drawings he has become a beast of considerable dimensions, see for example [T 1326 and 2475].