The early life of Norwegian artist Edvard Munch was marked by illness and death in his family. His mother, Laura Cathrine Munch (originally Bjølstad), died when Edvard Munch was five, his eldest sister, Sophie Munch, when he was 14, both of tuberculosis. His father, Christian Munch, and his brother also died when Edvard Munch was still young, and another sister developed a mental illness. Munch also endured ill health as a child and was often taught at home because he was too sick to attend school. In his later life, he struggled with mental health issues and alcoholism, suffering a nervous breakdown in 1908–09. “Illness, insanity, and death,” he said, “were the black angels that kept watch over my cradle and accompanied me all my life.”
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