Munch painted multiple versions of this work originally named Love and Pain, but which is often known as Vampire

It depicts a man and a woman embracing each other, with the woman’s head resting on the man’s neck

However, others have seen in the man “someone who is entrapped in a torturous hug of a vampire, whose fiery red hair is running along her own pale skin”. Nevertheless, Munch had always maintained that the image “only shows a woman who is kissing a man on his neck”

Stanisław Przybyszewski, a Polish writer and friend of Munch, described what he saw as “a man who has become submissive and on his neck the face of a vampire who is biting”. And the name Vampire stuck

This painting is part of the artist’s series of The Frieze of Life, in which he dealt with the themes of love, illness and death. Munch was convinced that a man’s internal energy and liberty were destined to be drained away by women. He briefly considered marriage, but eventually could not commit himself