Self-Portrait with Cigarette - Edvard Munch · 1895 · Elliott Best Restored Masters

Munch holds a cigarette halfway to his mouth. His collar is buttoned, his tie neatly knotted, but something seems to have interrupted the gesture. His eyes meet ours. Light catches his cheek, his fingertips, and a sliver of white cuff. The rest of his coat slips into the blue-black room. Only the smoke seems to move.

The original painting
Selvportrett med sigarett, oil on canvas, 110.5 × 85.5 cm. The National Museum in Oslo acquired the painting directly from Munch in 1895, the year he painted it. Catalogue raisonné, Woll M 382.

What a cigarette said in 1895

When Munch exhibited the painting in Kristiania, now Oslo, in the autumn of 1895, he called it simply Self-Portrait. The cigarette needed little explanation for his audience. Art historian Patricia Berman notes that cigarettes carried associations with bohemian life and with people who stood outside middle-class convention. For viewers already suspicious of Munch’s work, that small object offered one more reason to distrust the man who made it. 

The tension is still there in the clothes. Cover the cigarette with a fingertip and look at the white collar and formal tie. Uncover it, and the same carefully dressed man seems rather less concerned with anyone’s approval.

Bringing the Original Vision Closer to View

For this EB Restoration Signature™ edition, we worked from a digital reproduction to bring out the violet-brown strokes across the shoulder and the deep indigo of the sleeve. We kept the transition from coat to room soft. You can follow the turn of his arm by the direction of the brushwork, then lose its outline again in the dark. The smoke has that same elusive quality as it rises beside his face.

Curator’s Note

This is one of my favourite Munch portraits. What keeps me looking is the distance between his hand and his mouth. It’s just far enough for the gesture to feel suspended. I find myself waiting for him to take the next draw, and all the while he’s looking straight back at me.