Edvard Munch’s iconic artwork becomes the most expensive artwork sold at auction

May 3, 2012, Miriam Evans, Leave a comment

: Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art Two

This morning I woke to the astounding news that Edvard Munch’s iconic artwork The Scream sold for $120m at an auction at Sotheby’s in New York which lasted only 12 minutes. The famous piece, from 1895, is known to be the most colourful of the four versions which exist of The Scream, the other three are still owned by Norwegian museums.

I was particularly interested in the story because a few weeks ago I went to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art Two where Edvard Munch | Graphic Works from The Gundersen Collection is on display until the September 23 2012. The 50 works, which are on paper, are on display in the UK for the first time and are an intriguing insight into the artist’s thought process. Amongst the works there are sketches and re-workings of The Scream, which are a great example of how Munch experimented and revisited works.

I also enjoyed The Sculpture Show on the ground floor, which is a free exhibition and includes some classics, such as Ron Mueck’s unnerving work A Girl in which he explores perspective with a culpture of a life-like new-born baby on a humungous scale, dominating the room and yet still appearing so vulnerable.