August Strindberg

In the autumn of 1892 Munch arrived in Berlin to hang a show that caused such an uproar it was closed after a week. In the middle of that scandal he fell in with the Swedish writer August Strindberg and a circle of artists who drank at a wine bar they nicknamed The Black Piglet. They talked Nietzsche, sex, madness and the occult, and those late nights fed straight into the pictures Munch is now known for, works like Madonna and Vampire. He painted Strindberg during that same restless season. The friendship later curdled into suspicion on the writer's side, but Munch gave the portrait away to Stockholm, where it still hangs today.