Edvard Munch’s Freia Frieze was installed in the women’s canteen at the Freia Chocolate Factory in 1923. More than a century later, these twelve paintings are now leaving the factory to be shown at MUNCH in the exhibition Edvard Munch and the Chocolate Factory.

This book sheds light on the frieze from new perspectives: Curator Ana María Bresciani puts the works into a social and art-historical context, while author Marta Breen gives voice to the factory’s many female workers. Author Per Petterson writes about his mother, who worked at Freia, and about his own encounter with Munch’s art. Chipo Dendere, an expert on African studies, looks at the historically charged cacao industry, while painting conservators Lina Wulff Flogstad and Mie Mustad provide a rare insight into the conservation work behind the exhibition. The book shows how the Freia Frieze speaks not just about its own time but about ours – about art, work and community.