Edvard Munch (1863–1944)

A Norwegian and an important forerunner of expressionistic art. His best-known composition The Scream is one of my favourites, understanding that feeling… especially now that I am painting the house. One version of it was stolen in 1994, another in 2004. Both have since been recovered, but one version sustained damage during the theft which was too extensive to repair completely.

Linn & May’s great-grandmother Emma Hald remembered seeing Munch’s works exhibited on the snowy sidewalks in the winter. Wish she could have picked up one then! Some say that his paintings reflect the artist’s sexual anxieties, though it could also be argued that they are a better representation of his turbulent relationship with love itself.

Munch would later write, I inherited two of mankind’s most frightful enemies—the heritage of consumption and insanity—illness and madness and death were the black angels that stood at my cradle. In 1908, his anxiety, compounded by excessive drinking, had become acute. Subject to hallucinations and feelings of persecution, he entered the clinic of Dr Jacobson. But then another famous artist Salvador Dali also suffered from hallucinations.

Pictures from left: Paintings by of Munch, self-portrait, The Scream, Madonna, The Sick Child and woodcut of The Kiss. Today one can visit the Munch museet/Munch Museum to view his works which was all bequeathed unconditionally to the City of Oslo.

But can they (great works) get rid of the worm that lies gnawing at the roots of my heart – Munch