Love and Pain has also been called Vampire, though not by Munch; painted six different versions of the
subject in the period 1893–95; three versions are at the Munch Museum in Oslo, one is at the Gothenburg
Museum of Art, one is owned by a private collector and the last one is unaccounted for. He also painted
several versions and derivatives in his later career. The painting shows a woman with long flame-red hair
kissing a man on the neck, as the couple embrace. Although others have seen 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 Stanislaw 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 contacted the police.
In 2008, at a Sotheby's auction, an 1894 version of the painting sold for 38.2 million dollars (24.3 million
pounds) and set the world record for the auction of a Munch painting In 1895, Munch created a woodcut
with a very similar theme and composition, known as Vampyr II.Vampire in the Forest by Edvard Munch. In
1916–18, Munch reused the composition in a different setting for two paintings called Vampire in the
Forest and Vampire, currently in the collection of the Munch Museum.
http://wikivisually.com/wiki/Love_and_Pain_(Munch_painting)
Munchs "Vampir" gilt als eines der meistkopierten und meistbegehrten Bilder der europäischen
Kunstszene - das Gemälde zeigt im Original einen Mann in der tödlichen Umarmung einer rothaarigen
Vampirdame.
Munch hatte das Werk 1894 zunächst "Liebe und Schmerz" genannt. Es ist, laut "Independent", Teil einer
20-teiligen Serie namens "Der Fries des Lebens", zu der auch Munchs expressionistisches Meisterwerk
"Der Schrei" gehört. Insgesamt hatte der norwegische Künstler zwischen 1893 und 1894 vier Vampire
vollendet. Als die Werke 1902 erstmals in Berlin gezeigt wurden, war die öffentliche Aufregung groß.
Munch - Vampir
