© Munch Museum, Oslo. Courtesy Gundersen Collection
Edvard Munch’s The Scream is probably one of the most instantly recognisable modern paintings, appearing as it does in posters and parodies all over the world.
Munch related the dramatic scene, with its garish colours and skull-like face, to an angst-filled moment at sunset when the sky turned blood-red and he “felt a great, infinite scream go through nature”.
Madonna (1895). Hand-coloured lithograph© Munch Museum, Oslo. Courtesy Gundersen Collection
He also made several prints on the same theme, and one of these rare works is on display here.
The picture, one of only two hand-coloured versions of the print, is the highlight of a collection of Munch lithographs and woodcuts from the Gundersen Collection, which features more than 50 of Munch’s most important prints, including several hand-coloured by the artist himself.
Pål Georg Gundersen was inspired to seek out Munch’s work after seeing The Sick Child at the National Gallery of Norway, and his collection of prints features multiple copies of the same images, repeatedly revisiting Munch’s preoccupations with love, death, melancholy and anxiety.
Self-portrait with Skeleton. Lithograph© Munch Museum, Oslo. Courtesy Gundersen Collection
Munch held his first solo exhibition in the UK in Edinburgh in 1931, and the works from the Gundersen Collection are supplemented by a display examining Munch’s influence in Scotland, as well as additional prints on loan to the National Galleries of Scotland from two other private collections.
- Open 10am-5pm. Admission £7/£5.
