One of Wisconsin’s most recognizable painters, Charles Munch creates vivid work that explores the complex relationship between humans, animals, and the natural world. By eliminating extraneous detail, he attempts to convey a distinct image by the simplest means possible.
“I depict my subject with just enough description for recognition and then try to bring it to pulsing life through vibrant color relationships and dynamic compositions. My goal is to create images that are even truer to my vision of nature and my emotions than a realistic painting could be.”
Since Munch usually paints from his imagination or memory, he starts with a small ‘seed painting,’ often a watercolor in his sketchbook, and ‘grows’ it from small to large to even a larger painting using oil on canvas instead of watercolor. Each subsequent version acts as a stepping stone for Munch to balance and refine the subject in terms of line, color, and composition.
Born in St. Louis Missouri in 1945, Munch enjoyed summers in Door County, Wisconsin, where the landscape, flora, and fauna shaped his connection to nature. His fondness for art and painting led him to study at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, where he received a BA in painting in 1968. After college, Munch studied at the New York Studio School Drawing, Painting, and Sculpture and worked as an apprentice conservator of 19th-century American and 17th-century Dutch paintings. In the 1970s he returned to Wisconsin, and his paintings became semi-abstract that more closely matched his inner vision.
Munch’s work has been included in numerous gallery and museum exhibitions around the country. His paintings are in the collections of the Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee WI; Museum of Wisconsin Art, West Bend, WI; Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Madison WI; Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, among others.
