Edvard Munch, who was already well known as a painter, made his first intaglio prints and lithographs in Berlin in 1894-95, and his first woodcuts during his stay in Paris in 1896. In these early years few people collected his prints, but some of his friends and associates acquired many impressions as gifts or at reasonable prices. In 1902, Munch had settled in Germany once more, and for his reputation as a graphic artist, this year is of vital importance. In Lübeck Dr Max Linde, a wealthy doctor and collector of modern art, became interested in Munch's art, and among other things acquired an almost complete collection of his graphic work. At Dr Linde's, the German lawyer Gustav Schiefler for the first time discovered prints by Munch, and in the course of a few years he published a catalogue of all Munch's prints done before 1907. In 1904, Munch signed a contract with the German art dealer Bruno Cassirer, giving him exclusive rights to sell Munch's prints. To Munch, this contract was a financial disaster which he was eager to terminate when it expired in 1907. To manage this, however, he had to pay Cassirer 1 000 Marks, which he obtained from his new supporter, Ernest Thiel in Stockholm, by offering to sell him a collection of prints. Thiel finally acquired 97 prints, which are today in Thielska Galleriet in Stockholm. Rasmus Meyer in Bergen, who had bought his first Munch painting in 1906, probably started to buy prints during the winter of 1909-10. In this case, too, the initiative to establish a major collection of prints came from the artist and not from the collector. Meyer probably bought about 200 prints, half of which are today in the Rasmus Meyer Collection in Bergen. After breaking the contract with Cassirer, Munch had to undertake the selling of prints himself and it was of great importance to him that a number of his best prints were available in collections of a high standard, like those of Linde, Thiel and Meyer. After the first world war, Munch's financial situation improved considerably, and he was no longer interested in selling so much. One of the very few collectors who acquired graphic works directly from Munch in his later years, was the Norwegian stockbroker, author and art-collector, Roif Stenersen. He put together an impressive collection of modern Norwegian art, which he donated to the Aker municipality, later to be incorporated in the city of Oslo. His collection included 400 prints by Edvard Munch, some of them handcoloured at the request of Stenersen. For Munch it was always essential that his works could be seen by many people, and he himself bequeathed all his works of art, including more than 17000 prints, to the city of Oslo, thus becoming one of the greatest donators of art in Scandinavia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...