A sinuous, ghostly figure with empty eyes and an open mouth holds his hands over his ears. He stands facing us on a road with flamelike, billowing clouds in the background. Behind him, two men stroll away into the landscape.

THE SCREAM

Edvard Munch's The Scream is one of the world's most famous motifs. There are several versions of The Scream, and Munch also wrote a text about the motif before reproducing it in pictures.

...shaking with Angst
I felt the great Scream in Nature

- Edvard Munch

4 of the museum's 8 versions of Edvard Munch's The Scream: A painting with tempera and oil on unprimed cardboard, probably from 1910, a drawing version with crayon from 1893 and 2 of the museum's 6 lithographs from 1895, the one to the left a hand-coloured version.

4 of the museum's 8 versions of Edvard Munch's The Scream: A painting with tempera and oil on unprimed cardboard, probably from 1910, a drawing version with crayon from 1893 and 2 of the museum's 6 lithographs from 1895, the one to the left a hand-coloured version.

Edvard Munch produced four colourful versions of The Scream – two paintings with tempera, and two drawings with pastel and crayon. Two of these remained in his own possession and are in the MUNCH collection today. Of the remaining two versions of the famous motif, one is part of Norways National Museum's collection and one is privately owned.

He also created a lithograph of the motif. We don’t know how many lithographs were printed, but we estimate that there are around 30 impressions of The Scream. Six of these, including one that was hand-coloured by Munch, are in the museum's collection today.

Information about the display of The Scream at MUNCH. 

Follow The Scream from the old museum and into the new. Did you know that MUNCH actually owns several versions of the iconic motif?

© Munchmuseet