WE KNOW A SCREAM CAN REALLY CAUSE TROUBLE AND COST MONEY BUT THIS SCREAM BEGS TO DIFFER---IT IS THE SCREAM PAINTED BY EDVARD MUNCH THE FAMOUS NORWEGIAN ARTIST.
The Scream by Edvard Munch will be auctioned by Sotheby's New York on 2 MAy 2012 and is expected to fetch around RM 250 million
MANY HAVE NOT HEARD OF HIS NAME BUT HIS PAINTING CALLED 'THE SCREAM' IS SO FAMOUS IT RANKS AFTER 'MONA LISA' BY LEONARDO DA VINCI, 'SUNFLOWERS' BY VINCENT VAN GOGH, 'IRISES' BY VINCENT VAN GOGH, 'STARRY NIGHT' BY VINCENT VAN GOGH, 'BIRTH OF VENUS' BY BOTTICELLI, 'THE KISS' BY GUSTAV KLIMT AND 'GIRL WITH PEARL EARRING' BY VERMEER.
Some insist 'The Scream' is the world's second or third most recognisable painting after 'Mona Lisa'.
Now you can buy the original for around RM250 million this coming May 2. Of course the one you have seen countless times in magazines is safely locked inside Oslo museums but Edvard Munch, being quite savvy, painted FOUR similar, near identical paintings! All 4 look alike of course but each is slightly different to be unique. Anyway it is said Leonardo da Vinci also painted at least 2 finished versions of Mona Lisa and the other is still missing so hope springs eternal that you or I, preferably me, should stumble upon it in a flea market!
At RM 250 million, this 'Scream' is enough to make you scream, either in delight or disgust as RM 250 million can feed thousands of hungry peasants or educate children so they grow up and can, well, appreciate 'The Scream'!
Sotheby’s to Offer One of the Most Famous
Masterpieces in the World
EDVARD MUNCH’S THE SCREAM TO LEAD THE
IMPRESSIONIST & MODERN ART EVENING SALE
ON 2 MAY 2012 IN NEW YORK
Sotheby’s is honored to announce that Edvard Munch’s
masterpiece The Scream will lead its Impressionist &
Modern Art Evening Sale in New York on 2 May 2012. The
iconic work is one of the most instantly recognizable images
in both art history and popular culture, perhaps second only
to the Mona Lisa. The present version of The Scream, which
dates from 1895, is one of four versions of the composition
and the only version still in private hands. It will be on view in
London for the first time ever, with the exhibition at
Sotheby’s opening on 13 April. In New York, and also for the
first time ever, it will be on exhibition at Sotheby’s in advance
of the sale beginning 27 April.
The work is owned by
Norwegian businessman Petter Olsen, whose father Thomas
was a friend, neighbor and patron of Munch.
“Munch’s The Scream is the defining image of modernity,
and it is an immense privilege for Sotheby’s to be entrusted
with one of the most important works of art in private hands” commented Simon Shaw, Senior Vice President and Head of Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art department in New York.
“Instantly recognizable, this is one
of very few images which transcends art history and reaches a global consciousness. The Scream arguably
embodies even greater power today than when it was conceived. At a time of great critical interest in the artist,
and with the 150th anniversary of his birth in 2013, this spring is a particularly compelling time for The Scream
to appear on the market. For collectors and institutions, the opportunity to acquire such a singularly-influential
masterpiece is unprecedented in recent times.”
Mr. Shaw continued: “Given how rarely true icons come to the market it is difficult to predict The Scream’s
value. The recent success of masterpieces at Sotheby’s suggests that the price could exceed $80 million.”
“I have lived with this work all my life, and its power and energy have only increased with time,” said Petter
Olsen, the consignor of The Scream. “Now however, I feel the moment has come to offer the rest of the world a
chance to own and appreciate this remarkable work, which is the only version of The Scream not in the
collection of a Norwegian museum. My father Thomas Olsen was a friend of Munch, and acquired The Scream
as well as many other works by the artist. He hoped that his collection would further Munch’s international
renown by lending to exhibitions abroad. In that tradition, proceeds from this sale will go toward the
establishment of a new museum, art centre and hotel on my farm Ramme Gaard at Hvitsten, Norway. It will
open next year in connection with the Munch 150th anniversary, and will be dedicated to the artist’s work and
time there. We are restoring his house and studio, and guests can stay in his home.”
Mr. Olsen added, “I am concerned as an environmentalist about man’s relationship with nature, and I feel The
Scream makes an important statement about this.”
“I was walking along the road with two Friends /
the Sun was setting – The Sky turned a bloody
red / And I felt a whiff of Melancholy – I stood /
Still, deathly tired – over the blue-black / Fjord
and City hung Blood and Tongues of Fire / My
Friends walked on – I remained behind / –
shivering with Anxiety – I felt the great Scream in
Nature – Edvard Munch”
– The artist’s hand-painted inscription on the
frame of the present work
As the defining image of the Expressionist movement, The Scream stands as a
pivotal work in the history of art. Munch created the image in the mid-1890s
as the central element of his celebrated Frieze of Life series. The powerfully rendered,
blood-red sky presents the viewer with the reality of Munch’s
experience at the moment he is gripped by anxiety in the hills above Oslo. Like
his Dutch contemporary Vincent van Gogh, Munch’s desire was to paint a new
form of reality rooted in psychological experience, rather than visual. It is this
projection of Munch’s mental state that was so artistically innovative – a
landscape of the mind, whose impact is still felt in the art of today.
An icon of global visual culture, The Scream is instantly recognizable – from
Beijing to Moscow to New York. Since its creation at the turn of the 20th
century, the provocative work has only gained relevance and impact over time.
The haunting composition stands as the visual embodiment of modern anxiety
and existential dread, referenced by everyone from Andy Warhol to The
Simpsons. Edvard Munch and The Scream have been the subject of countless
books, scholarly articles, films and museum exhibitions.
Munch created four versions of The Scream. The prime example, worked in
1893 from tempera and crayon on board, is in the National Gallery of Norway;
another pastel version from the same year is thought to be a preliminary sketch
for the work, and is owned by the Munch Museum in Oslo; the present work
from the Olsen Collection, created in 1895 from pastel on board, most closely
follows the prime composition in the National Gallery; and a later version in
tempera and oil on board, thought to be completed in 1910, is also in the
collection of the Munch Museum.
In addition, Munch created a lithograph of
the image in 1895, which helped initiate the process of its mass proliferation.
Of the four versions of the work, the present The Scream is distinguished in
several remarkable ways: it is the most colorful and vibrant of the four; the only
version whose original frame was hand-painted by the artist to include his
poem detailing the work’s inspiration (pictured pg. 4); and the only version in
which one of the two figures in the background turns to look outward onto the
cityscape. This version has never before been on public view in either the UK or US, except briefly in the
National Gallery in Washington D.C. decades ago.
The Scream has been in the collection of the Olsen family for over 70 years. Thomas Olsen,
scion of the great ship-owning dynasty, was a collector and supporter of Munch from the late 1920s. Olsen and
the artist were neighbors at Hvitsten in Norway, where the young businessman’s role grew from friend to patron
and eventually to protector of his works.
After Hitler rose to power, Munch found himself among the artists whose
work was declared degenerate by the Nazi regime and his works were
stripped from the collections of the great federal and state galleries across
Germany. Olsen was instrumental in rescuing 74 of these de-accessioned
art works from Germany, thus saving them from probable destruction. Of
the Munch works that Olsen successfully rescued from the Nazis, he
presented Tate Britain with Munch’s The Sick Child and the Oslo City Hall
with The Tree of Life, both in 1939, because after conversing with Munch
he knew that the artist felt the need of recognition in Western Europe,
especially so after the advent of Hitler.
Before Olsen and his family fled
Norway for Great Britain in May 1940, he transported his collection –
including the present work – to Vaagaa in central Norway, where it was
stored in a neighbor’s hay barn until Norway’s liberation in 1945.
The Scream’s cultural resonance has been underscored further by two high-profile thefts. In 1994, at the start of
the Olympic Winter Games in Lillehammer, Norway, two thieves entered the National Gallery of Norway and
fled with the museum’s 1893 version of The Scream. A successful sting operation brought the work back to the
museum later that year, unharmed. A decade later, masked gunmen stole Munch’s 1910 version of The Scream
as well as his Madonna from the Munch Museum, also in Oslo. Both works were recovered two years later, and
were back on exhibition in 2008.
One for the road
THE END
