His work The Scream has become one of Western art's most acclaimed images. His childhood was overshadowed by illness, bereavement and the dread of inheriting a mental condition that ran in the family. Travel brought new influences and outlets. In Berlin , he met the Swedish dramatist August Strindberg , whom he painted, as he embarked on a major series of paintings he would later call The Frieze of Life , depicting a series of deeply-felt themes such as love, anxiety, jealousy and betrayal, steeped in atmosphere.
The Scream was conceived in Kristiania. According to Munch, he was out walking at sunset, when he 'heard the enormous, infinite scream of nature'. The painting's agonized face is widely identified with the angst of the modern person. Between and , he made two painted versions and two in pastels, as well as a number of prints. One of the pastels would eventually command the fourth highest nominal price paid for a painting at auction. As his fame and wealth grew, his emotional state remained insecure.
He briefly considered marriage, but could not commit himself. A mental breakdown in forced him to give up heavy drinking, and he was cheered by his increasing acceptance by the people of Kristiania and exposure in the city's museums. His later years were spent working in peace and privacy. Christian was a doctor and medical officer who married Laura, a woman half his age, in Laura was artistically talented and may have encouraged Edvard and Sophie. The family moved to Oslo then called Christiania and renamed Kristiania in in when Christian Munch was appointed medical officer at Akershus Fortress.
In Edvard's mother died of tuberculosis , probably aggravated by the exhaustion of five consecutive pregnancies in seven years, imposed on her by her religious husband. Munch's favourite sister, Johanne Sophie, also died of tuberculosis, at the age of 15, in Often ill for much of the winters and kept out of school, Edvard would draw to keep himself occupied.
He was tutored by his school mates and his aunt. Christian Munch also instructed his son in history and literature, and entertained the children with vivid ghost-stories and the tales of the American writer Edgar Allan Poe.
