Andy Warhol

Few works are as instantly recognisable, powerful, and emotionally charged as The Scream. Since its creation in the 1890s, Edvard Munch’s haunting depiction of existential dread has become a cultural touchstone, echoing far beyond the canvas into film, fashion, and advertising. Nearly a century after it was painted, Andy Warhol would revisit this modernist masterpiece, bringing his distinctive voice to Munch’s anguished vision to give rise to a new iconic rendition of The Scream.

Warhol’s connection to Munch was deep and long standing, with the artist famously citing the Norwegian painter as “his absolute favourite artist, alongside Matisse” (Tone Lyngstad Nyaas, ed., Munch by Others, Oslo 2012, p. 12). In 1973, Warhol visited the Munch Museum and the National Museum in Oslo at the invitation of Per Hovdenakk, then director of the Munch Museum. The visit left a profound impression on the artist; Warhol, known for his fascination with celebrity and mass-produced imagery, found in Munch’s work a deeply personal form of expression that transcended time and geography. He began collecting Munch’s prints shortly after, even buying a few prints whilst still in Norway. The invitation to visit the Museum came, however, on the back of an earlier meeting between Hovdenakk and Warhol back in 1963, when the Norwegian curator visited Warhol’s studio, known as The Factory, in New York. It was already then that Warhol expressed how fascinating and inspiring he found Munch’s œuvre, notably his experimental printmaking.