The recent Jasper Johns retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art included three paintings that took their titles and at least some of their inspiration from Munch's late self-portrait "Between the Clock and the Bed".
The final, great "Self-portrait between Clock and Bed" (pictured) shows his old, shrunken frame standing to attention between the clock that will mark his passing and the bed in which he will die.
The older Munch took to working for himself alone until, with "Self-Portrait Between the Clock and the Bed," he came upon one new fact of his life, incidentally relevant to everybody, that was worth getting just right.
In Self-Portrait between the Clock and the Bed he stands with hanging arms and an almost mild, almost expressionless face between the tall, dark pillar of time and a hospital-like bed, with a white bedspread striped in black and red.
The Virginia Museum owns the fine three-panel work by Jasper Johns, Between the Clock and the Bed, painted in 1981, and it was Ravenal who put a little postcard reproduction beside it of the 1940-3 painting by the Norwegian artist, Self-Portrait Between the Clock and the Bed.
In addition to his famous photographs of Frida Kahlo (his lover at the time), he made over ten thousand portraits between 1920 to 1930, and still had time to compete twice on the U.S. Olympic fencing team, bringing home the bronze medal in 1932.
His first sculpture was a bust of his father in 1860, and he produced at least 56 portraits between 1877 and his death in 1917.
(You should now have the portrait sandwiched between two pieces of cardboard).
Cindy Sherman, most famously, conquered this profitable art turf, beginning with her "Untitled Film Stills," a series of black-and-white self-portraits created between 1977 and 1980.
