Edvard Munch created four original versions of “The Scream.” They consist of two paintings and two pastel works made between 1893 and 1910.
The first painted version dates from 1893 and is in Oslo’s National Museum. Munch also made a pastel in 1893, probably as an early study or alternative execution. In 1895 he produced another pastel, the only version held outside a Norwegian museum; it sold at Sotheby’s in 2012 for nearly $120 million.
Munch returned to the composition in 1910, creating the second painted version, now associated with the Munch Museum in Oslo. The four works vary in color, surface, and detail, but all present the same central figure and sweeping landscape.
The total of four does not include the lithograph stone Munch made in 1895 or the prints pulled from it. Those are reproductive works, whereas the quiz’s “original versions” means the four unique painted and pastel executions. Both painted versions were stolen and later recovered.