For Immediate Release
Media Release
London | +44 (0)20 7293 6000 | Matthew Floris | [email protected]
Sarah Rustin | [email protected] | Melica Khansari | [email protected]
New York | +1 212 606 7176 | Lauren Gioia | [email protected]
Two Momentous Graphic Works by Edvard Munch
The Scream and Self-Portrait
Acquired directly from the Artist
by Norwegian industrialist and art patron Olaf Schou,
Offered from a Private Norwegian Collection
The Scream
Lithograph, 1895, Estimate £800,000-1,200,000
To be sold in the Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale,
London, 21 June 2016
Self-Portrait
Lithograph, 1895, Estimate £50,000-70,000
To be sold in the Prints & Multiples Sale, London,
27 September 2016
This June and September, Sotheby’s will offer at auction two momentous graphic works by
Edvard Munch: The Scream and Self-Portrait, both from 1895. These important works come to
sale from a private Norwegian collection and were originally owned by Olaf Schou, the Norwegian
industrialist, art collector and patron who was a friend and great supporter of Munch’s. Sotheby’s
auction marks the first appearance on the market of these prints. The Scream will be offered in
Sotheby’s Evening Sale of Impressionist & Modern Art in London on 21 June 2016, with an
estimate of £800,000-1,200,000, while Self-Portrait will be offered as part of Sotheby’s Prints &
Multiples sale in London on 27 September 2016, with an estimate of £50,000-70,000.
Olaf Schou (1861-1925) was particularly taken with Munch’s work, and beginning in the 1880s he
provided him with financial support whilst purchasing his works regularly at exhibitions. The
relationship between artist and patron was one of mutual respect, and over time Munch began
reserving some of his most important works for his ardent and long-time proponent, including
The Scream of 1893.
Schou acquired these two lithographic impressions directly from Munch circa 1900. They were
subsequently inherited by Olaf’s brother, Christian Schou, and thence by descent they passed
into the collection of the present owners.
James Mackie, Head of Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Department, London, said: “Munch’s
The Scream has transcended art history to reach a global consciousness and his lithograph of
1895 helped initiate the process of its mass proliferation. This exceptional impression has an
impact no less powerful than Munch’s 1893 tempera and crayon version.”
Lucy Rosenburgh, Sotheby’s Prints Specialist, said: “The distinguished history of these
masterpieces of printmaking makes their appearance on the market all the more exciting and
significant. We’re thrilled to be able to offer The Scream lithograph that was originally part of a
collection which included one of the four unique Screams.”
Munch created Self-Portrait in Berlin in the autumn of 1895, at the age of 31. He produced his
printed depiction of The Scream shortly afterwards. The current owners of the works describe
that, for as long as they can remember, the lithographs have hung side by side in their home:
they have therefore always perceived these prints as being pendants to one another. When
viewed in this way, the images gain even greater meaning and potency. Self-Portrait constitutes
an outward and physical representation of the artist, which, regardless of its Symbolist references
to mortality, depicts Munch in a state of quiet composure. The Scream counters – or
complements – this image as a rendering of the artist’s inner, psychological self; one in which his
internal torment and horror resonates around him and throughout the landscape.
The lithographic version of The Scream is one of several iterations of what has become a
momentous subject – a composition first conceived in tempera and crayon in 1893. It was typical
of Munch’s practice to investigate a recurring motif in both painted and printed media, usually to
divergent but equally compelling ends. In the lithograph Munch has transformed the powerful
hues of the first iteration into simple black and white contrasts, equally powerful in their
summarisation of the psychological content. While Munch’s creation of the lithograph would
have been motivated, at least in part, by a desire to disseminate his painted image more widely,
no formal edition of the print was ever published.
Only a small number of lithographs by Munch of this subject exist, and there are even fewer
variations identical to the variation of the print on offer in Sotheby’s sale. Munch produced three
variations of the subject; in some impressions, the image alone is printed; others include the title
‘Geschrei’ (‘Scream’). In impressions such as this, Munch included the title and a German
inscription at the bottom right: ‘Ich fühlte das grosse Geschrei durch die Natur’ (‘I felt the great
scream throughout nature’). This inscription recalls Munch’s experience of a moment of
anguished epiphany, at Ekeberg in the hills above Kristiania, which inspired the artist’s first
explorations of the subject.
Having built a strong relationship with Jens Thiis (1870-1942), the Director of the National Gallery
in Oslo, in 1909 Schou donated 116 works by Munch and other artists to the museum. This
generous endowment included Madonna (1894–95) and The Girls on the Pier (circa 1901), as well
as Munch’s second version of the celebrated painting, The Sick Child, which Schou commissioned
in 1896. The year following the donation, Schou presented the museum with his most invaluable
gift: the 1893 tempera and crayon version of The Scream.
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Notes to Editors
In 2012 in New York, Sotheby’s sold Edvard Munch’s 1895 pastel on board version of The Scream – from the
Olsen Collection – for $120 million. 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; a
later version in tempera and oil on board, thought to be completed in 1910, is also in the collection of the
Munch Museum.
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