Munch’s 1902 version of Pikene på Broen (The Girls on the Bridge), attracted a lot of bidders at Sotheby’s sale in New York on May 7, 2008. It finally sold for $30.8 million, well above its estimate and a world record.  It was sold by Graham Kirkham,  the founder of DFS Furniture, and has risen substantially in price since selling at auction  in 1980 for $2.8. Mr Kirkham bought it  for $7.2 million in 1996.

Il Simbolismo da Moreau a Gauguin a Klimt -Roma Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna

Now the Munch exhibition in Basle in finished, do not despair. This is an excellent and comprehensive exhibition in Rome that is well worth a special visit. There are about a hundred works in all. My only quarrel with the show is that among the many brilliant Böcklins that open the show, they have not managed to borrow the most influential of all: The Island of the Dead, the painting so important to Munch and  Strindberg among others.  The show explores the roots of Symbolism Europe-wide and so it includes the pre-Raphaelites: Rossetti and Burne-Jones’ femmes fatales give way to Moreau’s. His Salomé theme is explored  in  some depth: studies and drawings culminate in the important oil of 1876 loaned by the Armand Hammer Foundation, Los Angeles. Pale figures by Puvis de Chavannes do their usual thing in twilight on the seashore. Max Klinger is represented by  numerous graphics and sculpture. Fantin-Latour proves how uncomfortable he was as a Symbolist and what a good decision  it was to move on to flower painting. An interesting section is devoted to Joséphin Péladan’s Rosicrucian Salons of the 1890s. Numerous lesser-known Italian and north Europeans demonstrate the wide influence of the movement. The many works by Odilon Redon, both oils and graphics, include the strangely-smiling Spider of 1888. Gauguin is represented by wood carvings and his paintings include the important Parau na te Varua ino (1892) from Washington, a painting in which the witch’s face is underlit in exactly the same way as Munch’s Self-portrait with Cigarette (1895) – but I don’t think he could have seen it.  Mondrian’s Passion Flower (1901) demonstrates how widely the curators have cast their net along side the obvious choices. Rodin’s Succubus (1889) Prové’s Night (1894) and Minne’s Prodigal Son (1896) are highlights among the sculpture. Félician Rops La morte al ballo (1865-75) on loan from Hungary compares interestingly to Munch’s treatment of the same theme; Volpede’s Il sole (1904) compares with Munch’s Sun. There are several Klimts in the show, themost important of which is  Three Stages of Woman (1905). This again is interesting to compare with Munch’s, and it would have been good  to have one Munch’s big paintings to compare it with  but they only have a small drypoint  Woman in Three Stages (1895). Other Munchs are three oil paintings: Melancholy, Yellow Boat (1892) Vision (1892) Jealousy II (1907) and another graphic, Harpy (1894). There is also a fascinating portrait by Emile Fabry Man Contemplating his Destiny (1897) that takes its composition directly from The Scream. Altogether a large and extremely interesting  exhibition. The catalogue is good but be warned, the text is only in Italian.

Friday March 23rd 2007 10 am. Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival.   ‘Munch for Breakfast’  Coffee, croissants and an hour’s talk on Munch. The newly-published paperback will be on sale.

Edvard Munch was twenty-eight when he embarked on his lifelong effort to paint his ‘soul’s diary’.  His ambition was to create an image of enduring psychological truth constructed from the laboratory of his own eventful and tormented existece: ‘I try from self-scrutiny to dissect what is universal in the soul’. In these pictures Munch explored anarchism, symbolism, the Occult, decadence and the irrational depths of the psyche through the nascent discipline of psychologuy. Author of the first comprehensive biography of Edvard Munch  in English, Sue Prideaux tells the story of Munch’s extraordinary life: the rejection of his art as the scribbles of a madman, his movement in the fin de siecle bohemian circles of Paris  and Berlin, and the courage with which he stood up to the Nazis as a ‘degenerate’ artist in occupied Norway  at the end of his life.

Friday 18th November 2007 at 6.30 pm. ‘Edvard  Munch: Behind The Scream’   Slide lecture.  Royal Academy of Arts, Picadilly, London.  6.30 pm.  Tickets from the Royal Academy.

Wednesday 30th November 2007 at 7 pm. ‘Edvard Munch: ‘Behind The Scream’  The World Monuments Fund, The Royal Geographical Society, Kensington Gore, London SW7 2AR –    Tickets 0207 730 5344

The Royal Geographical Society is close to the Albert Hall.

The 1893 Scream stolen from the Munch Museum  in 2004 and recovered August 2006, is irreparably damaged, the  Munch Museum states in its report on the recovered picture.  At first it was thought the damage to the lower left hand corner was merely slight  impact damage that could be repaired.  However, the Museum has now produced a two hundred page report which  shows the damage to be worse than initially  assumed.  Severe water damage to the lower left hand corner has irreparably damaged The Scream which, the report states, “cannot be repaired.”

The BBC have chosen  ‘Edvard Munch: Behind the Scream’ to be their ‘Book of the Week’ on BBC Radio 4 throughout the week beginning November 7th.  Five episodes will be broadcast, each lasting quarter of an hour between 9.45 and 10 am and repeated again at half past midnight. Louis Hilyer will be reading Munch. Hilyer is a member of  The Royal Shakespeare Company; he played Banquo in their Macbeth. He should make a fascinating Munch.

The Royal Academy  of Arts Magazine No 88, Autumn 2005, carries the article ‘Beneath the Skin’ which takes an extract from ‘Edvard Munch: Behind The Scream’  . It tells the story of  how Munch’s instense  relationship with Tulla Larsen came to a bloody climax when a violent struggle left Munch’s hand shattered with a bullet. The incident inspired some of Munch’s most iconic works.

BBC History Magazine September 2005 (vol 6, no.9) carries the story  entitled, ‘How The Scream was saved from Hitler’  based on the passage in the biography which reveals how some 30 of Munch’s major paintings including The Scream were hidden from the Occupying German forces in Norway throughout World War II , after Hitler had declared them ‘Degenerate Art’  which must be destroyed.www.bbchistorymagazine.com