Death in the Sickroom

Death in the Sickroom depicts the death from tuberculosis of the artist's sister Sophie in 1877. Standing behind his other two sisters in the foreground, Munch himself faces back towards the wicker chair where Sophie has just passed away. The immense feelings of despair over Sophie's death, an event that occured almost twenty years prior to the creation of this lithograph, is heightened by the stark black and white composition and the frozen poses of Munch's family. One of the most eloquent of Symbolist prints, it shows Munch's mastery in converting personal tragedy into a universal theme of death and mourning.