Focus on this artwork and explain the Versions.
Munch created four versions, two in paint and two in pastels. The first painted version was the first exhibited, debuting in 1893. It is in the collection of the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design of Norway in Oslo. This is the version that has the barely visible pencil inscription "Kan kun være malet af en gal Mand!" ("could only have been painted by a madman"). A pastel version from that year, which may have been a preliminary study, is in the collection of the Munch Museum, also in Oslo. The second pastel version, from 1895, was owned by the German Jewish art collector Hugo Simon who sold it to Norwegian ship owner Thomas Olsen "around 1937". It was sold for $119,922,600 at Sotheby's Impressionist and Modern Art auction on 2 May 2012 to financier Leon Black. The auction was contested by the heirs of Hugo Simon. The second painted version dates from 1910, during a period when Munch revisited some of his prior compositions. It is also in the collection of the Munch Museum. These versions have seldom traveled, though the 1895 pastel was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York from October 2012 to April 2013, and the 1893 pastel was exhibited at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in 2015.Additionally, Munch created a lithograph stone of the composition in 1895 from which several prints produced by Munch survive. Only approximately four dozen prints were made before the original stone was resurfaced by the printer in Munch's absence.The material composition of the 1893 painted version was examined in 2010. The pigment analysis revealed the use of cadmium yellow, vermilion, ultramarine and viridian, among other pigments in use in the 19th century.
Leon Black paint Amsterdam Hugo Simon vermilion lithograph pastel Museum of Modern Art viridian ultramarine Oslo lithograph stone National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design Sotheby's Munch Museum Van Gogh Museum cadmium yellow