Symbol of human anxiety sells for record $119.9 million

Enlarge Image

SOTHEBY�S The Scream has become part of pop culture. (CP)

NEW YORK -- One of the art world's most recognizable images -- Edvard Munch's The Scream -- sold for a record $119,922,500 at auction in New York City on Wednesday.

The artwork was sold at Sotheby's Wednesday evening. The price includes the buyer's premium.

The 1895 pastel of a man holding his head and screaming under a streaked, blood-red sky is one of four versions by the Norwegian expressionist painter. The paintings have become a modern symbol for human anxiety, popularized in movies and plastered on everything from mugs to Halloween masks to T-shirts.

The piece auctioned at Sotheby's is the only one left in private hands. It was sold by Norwegian businessman Petter Olsen, whose father was a friend and patron of the artist.

"I have lived with this work all my life, and its power and energy have only increased with time," Olsen said in February.

"Now, however, I feel the moment has come to offer the rest of the world a chance to own and appreciate this remarkable work."

The previous record for an artwork sold at auction was $106.5 million for Picasso's Nude, Green Leaves, and Bust, sold in 2010 by Christie's in New York.

Proceeds from the sale will go toward the establishment of a new museum, art centre and hotel in Hvitsten, Norway, where Olsen's father and Munch were neighbours.

The image has become part of pop culture, "used by everyone from Warhol to Hollywood to cartoons to teacups and T-shirts," said Michael Frahm of the London-based art advisory service firm Frahm Ltd.

"Together with the Mona Lisa, it's the most famous and recognized image in art history."

Sotheby's said its pastel-on-board version of The Scream is the most colourful and vibrant of the four and the only version whose frame was hand-painted by the artist to include his poem, detailing the work's inspiration.

In the poem, Munch described himself "shivering with anxiety" and said he felt "the great scream in nature."

"It has historical importance ... it helped move art history from impressionism to expressionism," Frahm said of The Scream.

The director of the National Museum in Oslo, Audun Eckhoff, said Norwegian authorities approved the Munch sale since the other versions of the composition are in Norwegian museums.

One version is owned by the National Museum and two others by the Munch Museum, also in Oslo.

Sotheby's said a total of eight works have sold for $80 million or more at auction.

Only two other works besides Picasso's Nude, Green Leaves, and Bust have sold for more than $100 million at auction. Those are Picasso's Boy With a Pipe (The Young Apprentice) for $104.1 million in 2004 and Alberto Giacometti's Walking Man I" for $104.3 million in 2010.

Frahm said the sale shows great-quality artworks can still come up for sale, and the top end of the market is driving further away from the rest of the market and it's a global market now, where Asia and the Middle East are playing a more significant role than Europe and America.

The Scream was the most-talked- about lot of the current New York auctions, which run through May 11 and may tally $1.5 billion.

Sotheby's impressionist and modern art sale is continuing.

Its 76 lots are estimated by auction house to tally $245.9 million to $322.7 million.

-- The Associated Press

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 3, 2012 D8