(Bloomberg) -- One of Norway’s largest collections of Edvard Munch paintings is up for sale after shipping heir and art enthusiast Petter Olsen was declared bankrupt.
The collection, which Olsen has previously called “the biggest private Munch collection in Norway,” includes several self portraits of the nation’s most well-known painter.
Munch’s most famous work, the angst-ridden painting The Scream dating to the late 19th century, is not part of the lot. Olsen already sold one of four known copies in New York in 2012 for $119.9 million, making it the world’s most expensive work of art to sell at auction. The record has since been eclipsed.
Petter Olsen, heir to shipping magnate Thomas Olsen, owes creditors about 780 million kroner ($75 million) and is selling the collection, said Leif Petter Madsen, the head of Olsen’s bankruptcy estate. None are sold yet, he told Bloomberg by text message on Wednesday, confirming an earlier report by Norwegian business daily Dagens Naeringsliv.
The Munch museum in Oslo is interested in the paintings but has no budget to buy them, Director Tone Hansen told public broadcaster NRK. No details of the upcoming sale have been made public.
Born in 1863, Munch is known as one of most significant modernist artists and a pioneer of the expressionist style. Olsen’s father was a close friend of the painter who died in 1944.
Olsen, 76, was once among Norway’s richest people, with a net worth of 4.5 billion kroner in 1996, according to business magazine Kapital. The fortune was mainly eroded by loss-making real estate investments, including a museum at Munch’s birthplace, and tax claims, the Finansavisen newspaper reported earlier this month.
In 2001, Petter won a court case against his older brother, shipping tycoon Fred, who had sued him for half of his 34 Munch paintings, at an estimated value of one billion kroner at the time.
(Updates with Munch history, museum director quote starting in 5th paragraph.)
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