LONDON (Reuters) -
Sotheby's will offer the only privately owned version of Edvard Munch's
haunting work "The Scream" at an auction in New York on May 2 where
it expects to fetch over $80 million, the highest pre-sale value the auctioneer
has ever put on a work of art.
There are four
versions of the famous depiction of a figure facing out with its hands to its
ears apparently screaming. The three others belong to Norwegian museum
collections.
Simon Shaw, senior
vice president and head of Sotheby's Impressionist & Modern Art department
in New York
"Given how rarely
true icons come to the market it is difficult to predict The Scream's
value," he added in a statement. "The recent success of masterpieces
at Sotheby's suggests that the price could exceed $80 million."
The auctioneer called
The Scream one of the most instantly recognizable images in art and popular
culture, second only perhaps to Leonardo Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa".
The painting seeks to
communicate Munch's anxiety in the hills above Oslo
"It's an image
that has burnt itself into our collective retina," Shaw told Reuters,
speaking to the painting's iconic and world renowned status.
Global turbulence in
recent decades "has only made it more ubiquitous and well-known,"
Shaw said, noting that the painting had been on the cover of Time magazine back
in 1961.
Sotheby's drew
comparisons with Munch's Dutch contemporary Vincent Van Gogh, as both artists
strived to put their psychological experiences on canvas.
It also said the
version on offer at its impressionist and modern art evening auction was the
"most colorful and vibrant" of the four images and the only one in
which one of the figures in the background turns to look at the cityscape.
The work also features
a hand-painted inscription on its frame in which Munch explains his motivation
for image. It includes the lines "My Friends walked on-I remained
behind/shivering with Anxiety-I felt the great Scream in Nature."
NARROW ESCAPES
Olsen said proceeds
from the sale would go toward building a new museum, art centre and hotel at
his farm in Norway
His father, Thomas,
was the scion of a ship-owning family who supported Munch from the late 1920s,
and the men were neighbors at Hvitsten in Norway
During the Nazi
regime, Munch's works were declared "degenerate" and removed from the
great public German collections. Olsen stepped in to help rescue 74 of the
works, probably saving them from destruction.
Before Olsen and his
family fled Norway for Britain in 1940, he transported his art
collection, including the work now being sold, to Sandbu, a family farm where
it remained until Norway
Two other versions of
The Scream have been the subject of high-profile art thefts in recent years.
In 1994, two thieves
entered the National Gallery of Norway and fled with the museum's 1893 version
of The Scream. A successful sting operation brought the work back to the museum
later that year, unharmed.
A decade later, masked
gunmen stole Munch's 1910 version of The Scream, as well as his Madonna, from
the Munch Museum ,
also in Oslo
Shaw said that museum
attendance spiked after the first theft as patrons were drawn to the blank wall
space where the work had hung, attesting to its drawing power.
Exhibitions of The
Scream in London and New York
Given history, with
two of the four works having been stolen in the past 20 years, intense security
can be expected.
"We are conscious of the
unique circumstances, and will be taking all necessary measures to ensure the
safety of the work," Shaw said, while declining outline specific plans.
