Fascinated by The Scream? Munch’s “Vampire” bites back –-

Although I’ve long been familiar, as most art fans are, with Edvard Munch’s The Scream, I was not familiar with another masterpiece of his titled Love and Pain, more commonly known as “Vampire” (see image to left). Part of the Norwegian artist’s magnificently rendered 20-work series The Frieze of Life (which included The Scream), it is considered the most important of four Vampires he completed in 1893 and 1894. It was first exhibited in 1902, in Berlin, where it caused shock and consternation. Nazi Germany later condemned it as morally degenerate. Criticism ran the gamut from fears about women’s liberation (as you can see, the woman appears to be the aggressor here, “draining” the man’s life blood away—that old boy Munch had a great sense of irony in my view) to outrage at its portrayal of passion with sadomasochistic overtones.

For the past 70 years, this work has remained in the hands of a private collector, so has seldom been viewed by the public, although it was on loan to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art last year. Now it’s up for auction next week at Sotheby’s in New York; its estimated value? $35 mil. Not too shabby for a painting so reviled in earlier times—just confirms that maybe titillation does pay, not to mention being an incredibly fine painter and craftsman.

A more detailed article was published HERE in the UK Independent's art and architecture section.

-- Rosemary Carstens