In Berlin at the end of the 19th century, Edvard Munch, the Norwegian painter, Stanislaw Przybyszewski, the writer known as the meteor of Young Poland, and Dagny Juel, the queen of Berlin bohemia, became intimately acquainted. They formed a triangle torn by strong emotions.

The acquaintance of Edvard Munch and Stanisław Przybyszewski
Norway's most famous painter, author of the iconic "Scream", Edvard Munch (1863-1944) and the "brilliant Pole", "meteor of Young Poland" - Stanislaw Przybyszewski (1868-1927) met in the 1890s in Berlin, where artistic life was concentrated at the time. In a wine bar called "Pod Czarnym Pigiakiem" ("Under the Black Pig") ("Zum Schwarzen Ferkel") by the regulars, the artistic bohemia met, and debates and discussions about art and life lasted until dawn. The circle of Scandinavian writers, thinkers and artists, such as the playwright August Strindberg (1849-1912), the painter Edvard Munch and the poet Ola Hansson (1860-1925), was joined by the charismatic Pole Stanislaw Przybyszewski. The community of ideas and souls born between them, despite the fact that their relations were not only inspiring but also devastating at the same time, bore the most perfect fruit.

Przybyszewski wrote in his memoirs:
"At the same time I lived in a very close relationship with the Norwegian painter, Edward Munch [...]. Rarely have I had such a close spiritual relationship with any artist as I did with Edward Munch - and vice versa - he himself continually emphasised this".

In the painter's museum, the Munchmuseet in Oslo, there is ample visual evidence of this intimacy. The artist produced several versions of Przybyszewski's portrait, and the motif of his face recurred in many subsequent realisations of the Norwegian master.

A brief history of Przybyszewski's life
Stanisław Przybyszewski was born on 7 May 1868 in the village of Łojewo (today in the municipality of Inowrocław). He was the author of dramas, novels, poetry and texts on art. His writings had a significant influence on Polish and German modernism. He became famous as the author of the first study on the art of Edvard Munch (1894). Polak found in Munch's paintings the fullest reflection of his own ideas, which he described as 'psychic naturalism'. This interpretation contributed to the painter's success and gave direction to the later reception of his work.

The twenty-one-year-old Przybyszewski arrived in Berlin and in 1889 began studying medicine, then architecture, but eventually turned to literature. He joined the Scandinavian colony in the bohemian mecca "Under the Black Pig". In 1892, Munch exhibited his paintings in Berlin. Amid scandal, the exhibition was closed after only a week and the painter wrote to his aunt: "I could not have had a better form of publicity".

At the same time, Edvard Munch introduced his companions to Dagny Juel (1867-1901), a Norwegian woman who had come to Berlin to study music. A pretty girl with an appealing personality, she quickly became the queen of bohemia and the 'muse from the land of the fjords', adored by artists. No one was indifferent to her charm. She romanced Strindberg and Munch, but it was Stanislaw Przybyszewski who became her husband after a few months of acquaintance. The Przybyszewski and Munch created a kind of emotional triangle, based on the affinity of artistic ideas and the fascination of two men for the same woman. Munch wrote: "I painted several images of these people, including one I called 'Jealousy' [...]. This boudoir story thwarted many of my plans'.

Thanks to Przybyszewski's involvement, the first exhibition of Munch's work in Poland took place in 1903, at the Salon of Aleksander Krywult (1845-1903) in Warsaw.

Stanisław Przybyszewski in Munch's paintings
Stach's face, as Przybyszewski was called, recurred many more times in Munch's works. We can recognise it, for example, in several versions of the painting Jealousy - In the Brain of a Man, A Man's Head in a Woman's Hair. We can see Dagny's face, which obsessively captured the painter's imagination, in the famous 'Madonna', repeated many times in subsequent versions, or in 'Lovers in the Waves'.

The eponymous portrait of Przybyszewski was painted in 1895, already after Stanisław's marriage to Dagny. It depicts the twenty-seven-year-old Stach freely posing for the author. The resulting image is a very private, spontaneous, quick sketch of a thoughtful friend. Przybyszewski is slightly leaning forward, with a cigarette dangling from the left corner of his mouth and an absent-minded gaze directed straight ahead. The bust was hastily sketched on unprimed cardboard. Most finished is the face of the model. The same portrait shot is repeated by Munch in two lithographic versions: black and white and coloured.

At the same time as the portrait of the writer, Munch created his self-portrait, also with a cigarette.

Munch's acquaintance with Przybyszewski and the painter's work
Edvard Munch was in the habit of carefully "digesting" the subject that was bothering him. He would therefore create several versions of a given work, to which he would return even years later. The relationship with Przybyszewski from the time of the "Black Piglet", the kinship of souls that Przybyszewski wrote about, his support as the first admirer and promoter of the artist's talent left an indelible mark on the painter's work. The years of Berlin "symbiosis" were the time of Munch's flagship works such as: "The Scream", "The Madonna", "The Vampire" and "The Kiss". Przybyszewski published his most famous works at the time: "Requiem aeternam" (German: "Totenmesse", 1893), "De profundis" (1895), "Satan's Children" (German: "Satans Kinder", 1897).

Przybyszewski - writer, pianist, scandalist
In the following years, Stach shuttled between Norway, Poland and Germany; as editor of the Kraków-based "Życie" (1899), he even played the role of prophet. In his manifesto "Confiteor", he put forward the postulate of a free, elite art, devoid of didactic or patriotic purpose, "art for art's sake", with the artist as its priest. He was also a talented and original pianist, as well as a ... scandalist and womaniser, the father of six children he had with three women. To marry another, he abandoned the mother of three of them. The abandoned woman soon committed suicide. During his marriage, he got into two romances at the same time, including with the wife of his friend Jan Kasprowicz - Jadwiga Kasprowiczowa.

Stanisław Przybyszewski returned to Poland in 1919 and actively supported the rebuilding of the state. He worked in the Civil Chancellery of the President of Poland and was awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (1925). He died on 23 November 1927, at the age of 59, in the estate of Jaronty near Inowrocław. The funeral, with honours and in the presence of numerous dignitaries, journalists, writers and university rectors, took place in Góra, Kujawy.

Dagny Juel-Przybyszewska died tragically on 5 June 1901, at the age of 34, in Tiflis (now Tbilisi), Georgia. She was shot dead by Władysław Emeryk, a poet fascinated by Stach's writings and Dagny's personality, who then committed suicide. Today she is regarded as a symbol of feminism, and her family home in Kongsvinger houses the Women's Museum.

Edvard Munch lived to be 81 years old. He died on 23 January 1944 in Aker, a suburb of Oslo. He was artistically active until the end of his life. He created thousands of works in painting, printmaking, sculpture, drawing, photography and film. In his will he bequeathed his entire legacy to the city of Oslo, where the Munch Museum was opened in 1963.