Lost Munch painting unveiled in Germany

Oct 13, 2011, 15:41 GMT

Bremen, Germany - A lost painting by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch that was discovered nailed to under another Munch work was unveiled in the German city of Bremen on Thursday.

The rediscovered oil painting shows a doll-like naked girl and the leering faces and grasping hands of three men.

Picture restorers first realized in 2005 from X-ray images that there was another canvas underneath a Munch painting entitled The Child and Death. They later carefully separated them.

The City of Bremen Art Gallery bought The Child and Death in 1918, never suspecting it was buying two for the price of one.

The hidden painting, which curators have entitled Girl and Three Male Heads, goes on public exhibition in Bremen for the first time Saturday as a part of a show of almost unknown works by Edvard Munch (1863-1944).

As with his most famous painting, The Scream, Munch often rendered subjects many times over in drawings and paintings, but there are no other versions of Girl and Three Male Heads.

No one knows why it was covered up, but dust and Munch's fingerprints on it show it must have been lying around his studio for many years. Curators said Munch might have either taken a dislike to it or else needed a frame at short notice.

'It's very experimental. None of his other works is as symbolist as this,' said curator Dorothee Jansen.

Curators said the show of 76 works aims to show people that Munch's oeuvre was much more comprehensive than just The Scream, an image which shows an agonized person in front of a red sky.