An $80 Million Pricetag on The Scream by Edvard Munch

The Scream by Artist Edvard Munch

Would you pay $80 million for this iconic painting?

Munch’s masterpiece “The Scream” will be sold this May at Sotheby’s in New York for an estimated price of $80 million.  The current owner is a Norwegian businessman named Peter Olsen, whose father was a friend and patrol on Edvard Munch.  It is the only version of the painting that is privately owned.

There are actually four versions of this painting: the other painted versions are displayed in the Munch Museum and the National Gallery of Norway.  The version that will be for sale in May was created by Munch in 1895 from pastel on board.  It is the most colourful and vibrant of the four versions, it’s the only version that has an original frame hand-painted by the artist to include his poem which was the inspiration for the painting, and it’s also the only version in which one of the two figures in the background turns to look toward the cityscape.

In the poem that surrounds the painting, Munch described himself “shivering with anxiety’’ and said that he felt “the great scream in nature.’’  The painting has often been interpreted as a representation of the anxiety of the modern man.

The work will be on view at Sotheby’s in London starting April 13 and then in New York starting April 27.  More details here.

Like the painting but don’t have $80 million?  We can help-click here!

About the Artist:

Artist Edvard Munch

Edvard Munch (12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian Symbolist painter, printmaker and an important forerunner of expressionist art.  His best-known composition, The Scream, is part of a series The Frieze of Life, in which Munch explored the themes of love, fear, death, melancholia, and anxiety.

Munch wrote of how the painting came to be: “I was walking down the road with two friends when the sun set; suddenly, the sky turned as red as blood. I stopped and leaned against the fence, feeling unspeakably tired. Tongues of fire and blood stretched over the bluish black fjord. My friends went on walking, while I lagged behind, shivering with fear. Then I heard the enormous, infinite scream of nature.”  He later described the personal anguish behind the painting, “for several years I was almost mad… You know my picture, ‘The Scream?’ I was stretched to the limit—nature was screaming in my blood… After that I gave up hope ever of being able to love again.”

© Rollie LaMarche – Come visit my site to learn more about art, artists and picture framing.