Edvard Munch created the lithograph version of “The Scream” in 1895.
The date is important because “The Scream” is not a single object but a motif Munch revisited in several media. He made two painted versions and two pastel versions, dating from 1893, 1895, and 1910. The lithograph translated the composition into a reproducible graphic form.
Munch had a lithographic stone made for the image, and roughly four dozen impressions were produced before the stone was resurfaced. Some surviving prints were hand-coloured by Munch, making individual examples slightly different. The lithograph also helped spread the image beyond the original paintings and pastels.
A common mix-up is 1893, the year associated with the best-known painted version and another pastel study. The 1910 date belongs to a later painted version, not the lithograph. Munch’s recurring image shows a figure on a bridge-like path beneath a violently coloured sky, inspired by his memory of experiencing what he described as an “infinite scream” passing through nature.