Icons From the Age of Anxiety: Edvard Munch's "The Scream"



Anxiety pays! Edvard Munch, Skrik, 1893; Oil, tempera, and pastel on cardboard
Dimensions 91 cm × 73.5 cm (36 in × 28.9 in) National Gallery, Oslo, Norway. God knows what this version is worth!



The Scream (Norwegian: Skrik) is the popular name given to each of four versions of a composition, created as both paintings and pastels, by the Expressionist artist Edvard Munch between 1893 and 1910. Der Schrei der Natur (The Scream of Nature) is the title Munch gave to these works, all of which show a figure with an agonized expression against a landscape with a tumultuous red sky. The landscape in the background is the Oslofjord, viewed from Ekeberg, Oslo, Norway.

Edvard Munch created the four versions in various media. The National Gallery, Oslo, holds one of two painted versions. The Munch Museum holds the other painted version (1910) and a pastel version from 1893.

The fourth version (pastel, 1895) sold for $119,922,500 at Sotheby's Impressionist and Modern art auction on 2 May 2012 to financier Leon Black, the highest nominal price paid for a painting at auction. (The Card Players by Paul Cézanne was sold privately in 2011 for between $250-300 million.)

Also in 1895, Munch created a lithograph stone of the image. Of the lithograph prints produced by Munch, several examples survive. Only approximately four dozen prints were made before the original stone was resurfaced by the printer in Munch's absence.

The Scream has been the target of several high-profile art thefts. In 1994, the version in the National Gallery was stolen. It was recovered several months later. In 2004, both The Scream and Madonna were stolen from the Munch Museum, and recovered two years later.

The world's highest priced cartoonist, Edvard Munch (1863-1944).