Rather fortunately for Norwegian painter and printmaker Edvard Munch, he found expression for his bouts of physical and spiritual turmoil in his art, and during his lifetime enjoyed an estimable reputation with many critics and collectors; he also was an eminent figure to a generation of younger European artists and lent a profound impact to the direction of their work. He is widely considered Scandinavia's most famous and influential visual artist. But to the general public and those who did not know him personally, Munch was assumed to be mentally unstable. "My art is rooted in a single reflection," Munch once declared, according to Michael Gibson's 1997 book Symbolism. "Why am I not as others are? Why was there a curse on my cradle? Why did I come into the world without any choice"" Munch further noted that "my art gives meaning to my life."

Munch's personal and professional...