Edvard Munch
was born on December 12, 1863, in Norway. In 1864 he moved with his
family to the city of Oslo.
He discovered that he was interest in art and in 1881; he enrolled at the Royal
School of Art and Design. The next year, he rented a studio and began his first
show, at the Industries and Art Exhibition.
Munch started working on new
paintings called ‘The Sick Child’, which he finished in 1886. In
what would be seen as the first work to represent Munch’s break from the realist
style, the painting symbolically captures intense emotion on the canvas.
From 1889 to 1892, he lived mainly in France, funded by state scholarships;
this was the most creative part of his artistic life. It was at this stage that
he started a series of paintings that he called ‘the Frieze of Life’, for which
he created 22 works for a 1902 Berlin exhibition. With paintings bearing such
titles as Melancholy, Jealousy, Despair,
Anxiety and The Scream—the last of which, painted in 1893,
would go on to become one of the most famous paintings ever produced reflecting
Munch’s mental state, and his style changed greatly depending on which emotion
had taken hold of him while working on each particular painting. The collection
was a huge success, and Munch soon became a well known worldwide.
He moved to a country house in Norway, where he began painting landscapes,
living in isolation. He painted right up to his death in 1944.
In May 2012, Munch's The Scream went on the auction block and
sold for more than $119 million in New York, a record-breaking
price, sealing its reputation as one of the most famous and important works of
art ever produced.
