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Sotheby’s to sell Munch’s “Scream” in New York

A privately owned version of Edvard Munch’s famous painting, "Scream" will be auctioned off in New York in May.

All the proceeds from the sale will go towards building a new, privately owned Munch museum in Vestby, a municipality located about an hour outside of Oslo, in the county of Akershus. The seller of the painting is businessman and billionaire Petter Olsen, who inherited "Scream" from his father – an old friend of Edvard Munch.

"I have lived with this picture all my life, and the energy and strength of this masterpiece has just increased with time," Olsen states in a press release.

The picture is one of four versions of "Scream," and the only one of them that is not owned by a Norwegian museum. Sotheby’s will be in charge of the sale, which will take place in New York on May 2. The auction house estimates that painting will sell for at least $80 million (approximately NOK 450 million).

Munch made the painting in 1895, inspired by one of his walks in the Ekeberg hills in Oslo. The painting is meant to express Munch’s "scream through nature."

(NRK)

Julie Ryland


Written by Rolleiv Solholm

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