LITERATURE: Frank Høifødt: “Tulla Larsen”, Edvard Munch Works on Paper, exhibition catalogue Munch Museum 2.11.2013-02.03.2014, Oslo 2013, p. 176-191.

In the summer of 1902 the relationship between Munch and Tulla Larsen ended in a dramatic fashion with a shot accidentally fired. It was Munch himself who was fingering a pistol, when it went off and hit his middle finger on his left hand. The Sin has been linked to Tulla, but the print was made earlier, and is not a portrait of her.

“Sin” is … based on an unknown model in Munch’s studio in Berlin, created during the long break in the relationship.

“Sin” reminds us of the dangers of a simplistic biographical approach. The Tulla story undoubtedly lives on in Munch’s life and art, but in a complex and ambiguous way. Before the shooting episode, Tulla is recognizable as a historical person and a traditional model. After 1902 “Tulla” can be put in quotation marks. With its caricatured features and cultural markers her image has been transformed into a one-dimensional role on Munch’s stage, where it largely merges with clichés of the “femme fatale” current at the time. P. 187-190.