Enough to make Norway scream

Press, 24 July 1986, Page 25

Enough to make Norway scream

Andy Warhol, the American pop artist whose latest exhibition is being shown in London, is to be sued for “stealing” Norway’s. best-known painting, “The Scream,” by Edvard Munch.

Warhol launched the pop art movement in the 1960 s with his paintings of a Campbell's soup tin and tinted enlargements of photographs of Marilyn Monroe. Now he has added lurid new colouring to reproductions of “The Scream,” plus — to the anger of Norway — his own signature. The Munch museum in Oslo and surviving relatives of the Norwegian artist say they are preparing legal action against Warhol for breach of copyright Copyright on all Munch’s paintings is not due to. expire until

1994, 50 years after the artist’s death.

Alf Boe, director of the Munch museum, says: “This is

pure plagiarism. It’s a faithful copy of Munch’s picture.

By

CHRIS MOSEY,

Warhol has just changed the colour combinations, that’s all.” The museum superintendent, Aren Eggum, adds: “We are consulting with lawyers concerning copyright The question is whether the picture has enough of Warhol’s own personal stamp about it for it to be recognised as his own work or whether it is a pure copy.” Munch painted “The Scream” in Berlin in 1893. It has been lauded as an expression of the anguish and confusion the individual experiences in the modern age. Warhol had planned to sell lithographs of his latest art work for $86,000 at Christie’s. This may now be endangered by the scream of protest

London “Observer” 1