Edvard Munch and the Chocolate Factory

From Freia’s canteen to MUNCH – step inside Edvard Munch’s historic decoration for the chocolate factory and explore the labour movement and women’s emancipation in his time. This exhibition offers a rare chance to see these vibrant works up close.
Workers labouring physically in a snow-covered urban environment, with factories, blocks and houses rising behind them. Painting.

Exhibition

Floor 9
22.05.2026 – 11.10.2026

Edvard Munch’s large-scale paintings for the Freia chocolate factory in 1923 were the first ever decorative artworks to be commissioned for a factory. It was also the first time such works had been commissioned for a women’s canteen. With the temporary relocation of these works from Freia’s headquarters to MUNCH, it will be possible to view them at close range, together with a rich selection of sketches and other related works.   

Taking the frieze of paintings Munch created for Freia as a starting point, the exhibition explores his interest in making art for public spaces, as well as the project’s broader social context. At the time, Freia – Norway’s most iconic chocolate brand, both then and now – was seen as a progressive company which prioritised the wellbeing, health and welfare of its employees. Two thirds of Freia’s staff were women, and the exhibition highlights women’s campaign for rights, as both employees and human beings.  

The exhibition also includes Munch’s preparatory sketches for the Freia frieze, and related works from the museum’s collection which illustrate his fascination with workers, women and children. A rich selection of documentary and archival material gives an extraordinary insight into the times Munch lived in, conditions in the chocolate factory and a changing society.