Angst and humanity: Norwalk exhibit examines psychological impacts of pandemic
Joel Lang
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The Lockwood Mathews Mansion Museum’s “Socially Distant Art: Creativity in the Lockdown” exhibit features 25 artists and runs through Aug. 29. Forced Separation by Kathie Milligan will be included in the exhibit.Courtesy of Kathie Milligan / Contributed photo
When Susan Gilgore, executive director at the Lockwood Mathews Mansion Museum in Norwalk, began thinking about a pandemic-related art exhibit, one of the first works that came to mind was a 1919 painting by the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch.
This wasn’t Munch’s famous, frightening “Scream.” It was a self-portrait, showing the artist seated in an invalid’s robe and blanket, almost defeated by the Spanish flu. His pale face looks out from the canvas; only the circle of his open mouth reminiscent of the more lurid “Scream.”