A series of 12 monumental paintings by Edvard Munch, created for the workers' canteen of the Freia chocolate factory in Oslo, have been temporarily removed from their original location for the first time. The works, known as the Freia Frieze, are now on display at the nearby Munch Museum in an exhibition titled "Edvard Munch and the Chocolate Factory," which also includes preparatory sketches and examines the artist's output in the 1920s.
The exhibition uses the commission to explore the intersection of art, industry, and social change in interwar Norway. The paintings, commissioned by factory owner Johan Throne Holst, hung for a century in a space exposed to chocolate dust and cigarette smoke, representing one of Munch's only public commissions and his interest in non-monumental, movable art forms. The show also contextualizes the works within the history of Norwegian labor standards and the factory's role in shaping them.