London, Sotheby’s beats a Munch over four meters long. Estimate: between 15 and 25 million dollars

“Dance on the Beach” is a legendary and monumental work of art. It was commissioned in 1906 by world-renowned theater and film director Max Reinhardt whose productions were deeply influenced by the works of Edvard Munch. Thus was born the so-called Reinhardt Frieze, those twelve large canvases displayed on the walls of the avant-garde theater in Berlin – an authentic immersive installation that was one of the first of its kind, a forerunner of the limitless research between performance and art. All the canvases are now kept in German museum collections. All but one, monumental that exceeds four meters; “the culmination of the cycle”, say the experts, the most energetic, rhythmic, the only one to bear the signature in full. On March 1st it will be auctioned at Sotheby’s in London during the Modern & Contemporary Evening Sale. The estimate: somewhere between $15 and 25 million.

«Munch was the rebel par excellence and every brushstroke of this frieze is absolutely modern and purely expressive», Simon Shaw, Sotheby’s Vice Chairman, Fine Arts, reveals to the press. “This composition re-imagines one of Munch’s greatest images, the Dance of Life, which was the culmination of the artist’s Life Frieze and placed love at the center of the artist’s ‘modern life of the soul’. Its first version dates from 1899-1900 and can be found next to the iconic Scream in the National Gallery in Oslo. This work is among the greatest Expressionist masterpieces to remain in private hands: its shocking emotional impact remains as powerful today as it was in 1906».

The painting was last put on the market 89 years ago, when it was bought at an auction in Oslo by Thomas Olsen, a longtime friend of Munch and his neighbor – who put together, among other things, a the artist’s unparalleled collection of approximately 30 works, including one of four versions of the Scream. The story goes like this: In 1939, Olsen hung Danza on the beach in the first class lounge of his ocean liner MS Black Watch, which traveled between Oslo and Newcastle. He removed it shortly after, when Britain declared war on Germany, and hid with his paintings in a barn in the Norwegian forest for the duration of the conflict. Recovered from its hiding place after the war, the work has remained in the hands of the Olsen family ever since.

Then the turning point: identified as the property of Professor Curt Glaser, friend and biographer of Munch, who had purchased it after the renovation of the Berlin theater in 1912 and was then forced to flee Germany in 1933, the work is now on sale by arrangement between the two families, the Glasers and the Olsens. Just as Glaser’s legacy is celebrated with an exhibition at the Basel Kunstmuseum (until February 12), just as an impressive retrospective of Munch’s works is being staged at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris until the end of January .

«This exceptional painting is made even more special by its extraordinary provenance», declares Lucian Simmons, Vice Chairman and Sotheby’s Worldwide Head of Restitution, «a story that has unraveled since it was painted 115 years ago. There is an intertwining of two families in this painting, both important patrons of Munch. The Glasers and Olsens were so important to Munch that he painted both Henrietta Olsen and Elsa Glaser (wives of Thomas and Curt). We are proud to participate in the next chapter of the work, while celebrating the legacy of the patrons who have been instrumental in supporting the vision of such a great artist”.