Edvard Munch paintings, including "The Scream", have universal appeal in addition to their highly personal meaning. Munch's works are now represented in numerous major museums and galleries in Norway and abroad. His cabin, "the Happy House", was given to the municipality of Åsgårdstrand in 1944; it serves as a small Munch Museum. The inventory has been maintained exactly as he left it. One version of "The Scream" was stolen from the National Gallery in 1994. In 2004, another version of "The Scream", along with one of "Madonna", was stolen from the Munch Museum in a daring daylight robbery. All were eventually recovered,
The Kiss (Munch painting) was part of a series Munch called the "Frieze of Life", on which he spent more than 30 years of his career. The cycle depicts stages of a relationship between men and women and is part of what Munch called "the battle between men and women that is called love". It includes portrayals of attraction, courtship, realization, and disappointment. According to the Museum of Modern Art, the dark ambiance of "The Kiss" is representative of Munch's ambivalence regarding romance. In the 1897 painting, art historian Reinhold Heller finds it "virtually impossible" to separate the two figures, particularly where their faces