At National Gallery, Edvard Munch's 'Prints' reveal artist's methodical process

With all his "Scream"-ing and "Vampire"-ism, we tend to think of Edvard Munch as the Neurotic from Norway. What's harder to recognize is that those direct effusions from a tortured soul are, in fact, craftily organized constructions worked out over years, sometimes decades, until Munch had exhausted the options they offered....

An important new exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, titled "Edvard Munch: Master Prints," explores a dozen or so emotive subjects from Munch's repertoire, sampled from the gallery's excellent Munch holdings as well as from the Epstein Family Collection, whose owners are longtime donors to the gallery, and from the important New York collection of Catherine Woodard and Nelson Blitz Jr. That sampling shows how Munch could use sequences of woodblock prints and lithographs, slightly or significantly varied over time, to come to grips with his favorite subjects....