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Was ‘The Scream’ Inspired by Munch’s Tax Return?
Laura Saunders
Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” recently sold for $120 million at an auction conducted by Sotheby’s in New York. One of four painted or pastel versions of the same image made by Munch, the auctioned work was the only one in still private hands. The buyer’s identity was not revealed.
It’s a good thing Munch wasn’t around to pay taxes on the profit.
Jeffery Yablon, a partner at the Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman law firm in Washington who tracks memorable tax quotations, notes this one from Munch (as quoted in Sue Prideaux’s “Edvard Munch: Behind the Scream”, Yale University Press, 2005):
This tax problem has made a bookkeeper of me too. I’m really not supposed to paint, I guess. Instead, I’m supposed to sit here and scribble figures in a book. If the figures don’t balance I’ll be put in prison. I don’t care about money. All I want to do with the limited time I have left is to use it to paint a few pictures in peace and quiet. By now, I’ve learned a good deal about painting and ought to be able to contribute my best. The country might benefit from giving me time to paint. But does anyone care?
Nor did Munch stop there. As Prideaux writes, he also penned “hyperbolic rants” to the tax authorities, “who were accused of wanting to tax the skin on his brain, the hand of the artist, the voice of the tenor, and the thoughts of the philosopher.”
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