Edvard Munch 2008, the painting "Vampire" set a new record for his paintings when it was sold for US$38,162,000 at Sotheby's New York. Munch's image appears on the Norwegian 1,000-kroner note, along with pictures inspired by his artwork. In February 2012, a major Munch exhibition, "Edvard Munch. The Modern Eye", opened at the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; the exhibition was opened by Mette-Marit, Crown Princess of Norway. In May 2012, "The Scream" sold for US$119.9 million, and is the second most expensive artwork ever sold at an open auction. (It was surpassed in November 2013 by "Three Studies of Lucian Freud", which sold
Edvard Munch "Separation", "Jealousy", and "Ashes"). Munch often uses shadows and rings of color around his figures to emphasize an aura of fear, menace, anxiety, or sexual intensity. These paintings have been interpreted as reflections of the artist's sexual anxieties, though it could also be argued that they represent his turbulent relationship with love itself and his general pessimism regarding human existence. Many of these sketches and paintings were done in several versions, such as "Madonna", "Hands" and "Puberty", and also transcribed as wood-block prints and lithographs. Munch hated to part with his paintings because he thought of his work as a