Is the threat of lawsuits against scholars creating catalogues raisonné really a false concern as suggested recently in The Art Newspaper? The same publication reports that the writer of the Munch catalogue raisonné received just such a threat when she refused to include Two Children on a Beach in the artist’s oeuvre:
Gerd Woll, the author of the Munch catalogue raisonné, and the former senior curator at Munch Museet in Oslo, says she “very much doubts” the work is by Munch. When researching the catalogue raisonné, Woll was asked to include the painting several times, but declined. “When I saw the painting I was doubtful, and where there are severe doubts a work should not be included,” she says. “We were even threatened with a court case if we didn’t include it,” she recalls. Woll questions the painting’s authorship because: “There is no documentation, such as provenance or exhibition history, connecting this painting to Munch and the subject has not been recognised in any other work by Munch. Technical analysis shows similarities to paintings by Munch, but [this] is insufficient evidence.”
Disputed Munch at Leopold Museum (The Art Newspaper)
