Edvard Munch Research Paper

Edvard Munch was a Norwegian printer and an expressionist painter. Who was credited with one of the most recognized pre-Expressionist paintings, titled the Scream. Munch was born in a small village called Adalsbruk in Löten, Norway on December 12 1863 to Laura Catherine Bjølstad and Christian Munch. Munch was the second oldest of five children, with an older sister Sophie and three younger siblings, Peter, Laura, and Inger. In 1864, Munch’s father Christian who was a doctor, moved his family to Christiania, today known as Oslo, where him and his siblings were raised. In 1877, Munch’s mother Laura Catherine and his eldest sister Sophie both died of Tuberculosis, leaving his father to raise the children with the help of their Aunt Karen. While …show more content…
Similar to his father, Edvard Munch suffered from mental illness and alcoholism, which was clear in his works. His works showed aspects of anxiety, personal tragedy, sickness, and failure. Munch was never married and lived alone on his estate with all of his artwork during his adult life. In fact, Munch called his paintings his children and hated to be separated from them. When he passed away at the age of 80, in 1944, authorities found a massive art collection in his house, including 1008 paintings, 4443 drawings, and 15391 prints, in addition to, other woodcuts, etchings, lithographs, lithographic stories, woodcut blocks, copperplates and photographs. Upon his death all of his works were donated to the Norwegian government, who decided to build him his museum to commemorate his life, called the Munch Museum of Art. His most iconic work, The Scream, sold at a record-breaking price of more than $119 million in 2012 at Sotheby’s in New York, which continued the painting’s reputation as one of the most famous and important works of art of all