When a norwegian Symbolist painter Edvard Munch (1863-1944)died, his remaining works were bequeathed to the city of Oslo, which built the Munch Museum at Tøyen (it opened in 1963).
The museum holds a collection of approximately 1,100 paintings, 4,500 drawings, and 18,000 prints, the broadest collection of his works in the world.
The Munch Museum serves as Munch's official estate; it has been active in responding to copyright infringements as well as clearing copyright for the work, such as the appearance of Munch's The Scream in a 2006 M and M's advertising campaign.
The U.S. copyright representative for the Munch Museum and the Estate of Edvard Munch is the Artists Rights Society.
Munch's art was highly personalized and he did little teaching. His "private" symbolism was far more personal than that of other Symbolist painters such as Gustave Moreau and James Ensor.