In the autumn of 1908, Edvard Munch admitted himself to Dr Daniel Jacobson’s private clinic in Copenhagen to be treated for acute alcohol-induced psychosis. Over the next eight months, Jacobson helped him give up nicotine as well as drink. Of the stream of images Munch painted in the clinic – never paralysed by any setback – one is a towering portrait of the doctor that appears about halfway through this new show.
Jacobson stands tall, feet widely planted, hands on hips in his three-piece suit. His face is all sharp-eyed intelligence, equal to any crisis. The sitter thought the picture loopy, perhaps because of all the pulsating energy that radiates around him in swift strokes to rival his vigour. But a photograph of the two men, the painting between them, shows it was an excellent likeness. It is quite surprising, therefore, to read the wall-text assertion that this was Munch’s act of “revenge”.
