Edvard Munch Edvard Munch Edvard Munch (; ; 12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian painter, whose best known work, "The Scream", has become one of the most iconic images of world art. His childhood was overshadowed by illness, bereavement and the dread of inheriting a mental condition that ran in the family. Studying at the Royal School of Art and Design in Kristiania (today’s Oslo), Munch began to live the bohemian life, under the largely negative influence of the nihilist Hans Jæger, who did, however, urge him to paint his own emotional and psychological state (‘soul painting’). From
Love and Pain (painting) in it "a man locked in a vampire's tortured embrace – her molten-red hair running along his soft bare skin," Munch himself always claimed it showed nothing more than "just a woman kissing a man on the neck". The painting was first called "Vampire" by Munch's friend, the critic Stanisław Przybyszewski. Przybyszewski saw the painting on exhibition and described it as "a man who has become submissive, and on his neck a biting vampire's face." A version of the painting was stolen from the Munch Museum on 23 February 1988. It was recovered later the same year, when the thief