An exhibition at Oslo's Munch museum, titled Edvard Munch and the Chocolate Factory, recontextualizes the artist's 1922 Freia frieze—a series of 12 canvases originally commissioned for the women's canteen at the Freia chocolate factory. The display explores the intersection of public art, labour history, and the exploitative cocoa trade.
The Frieze in Context
The frieze, on loan to the museum until October 2026 while Freia's canteen undergoes renovations, is shown outside the factory for only the second time in Norway. It was previously exhibited in Stockholm in 1968. The production of Freia's chocolate, which markets itself as a piece of Norwegian heritage, remains largely in Oslo, but the company is now owned by US food giant Mondelēz International.
Curator Ana María Bresciani notes that the years Munch worked on the frieze were dark for Europe, especially after World War I. The exhibition uses the frieze to tell the wider story of workers' rights and gender equality, while also addressing the violent, exploitative, and racist history of Freia's cocoa sourcing—first from South America and the Caribbean, and later from Ghana, then a British colony.
Munch's Intentions and Worker Realities
The frieze arrived at the factory in 1923, a pivotal time for Norwegian workers, who had recently won the right to an eight-hour day and summer holidays. However, Bresciani suggests many of the young female workers—often called "chocolate girls"—would not have had experience of the idyllic scenes Munch depicted, such as swimming or summer cottages. Munch himself wrote after a visit: "The little chocolate girls, sat there eating, understanding the pictures better and better."
There were complaints about missing details like doors and chimneys in the paintings. Munch agreed to add them only on the condition that a chauffeur waited for him outside the factory. When that didn't happen, he reportedly told the factory director to do it himself.
Financial Disparities and Criticism
Chocolate mogul Johan Throne Holst paid Munch 80,000 Norwegian kroner (equivalent to about 2.5 million kroner or £192,000 today), while the women workers survived on minuscule incomes. This disparity drew criticism. The Oslo-based daily Arbeiderbladet reported on 15 October 1923: "While the workers are kept on starvation wages, large capital is invested in costly paintings, which in time could be sold at a large profit."
Despite this, Freia cultivated an image as a progressive employer, offering workers one free bath per week, monthly manicures for hygiene, modern flushing toilets, uniforms, a factory doctor, and low-cost porridge and cocoa milk—seen as preferable to poor-quality coffee.
Munch's Ambition and Public Art Legacy
The Freia frieze is one of only two public works by Munch, the other being the Aula series for the University of Oslo. Munch was keen on public art, having worked on plans for Oslo's new city hall, though he was never commissioned and died before its completion. Bresciani believes Munch sought fame through public commissions and his network of influential friends. "He was really interested in public commissions," she says. "Because he thought his art was to be lived with among the people—and he was a strategist when it came to that."
Edvard Munch and the Chocolate Factory is on at the Munch Museum, Oslo, until 11 October 2026.
