Munch print fetches record 1.27 mln dollars at auction

OSLO, Nov 15 (Reuters) A woodcut by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch fetched a record 1.27 million dollars at an Oslo auction.

It was the highest price ever paid for a Munch print and near the record for a print by any artist, experts said yesterday.

The 1899 print ''Two Human Beings. The Lonely Ones'' was sold by a Norwegian family at Blomqvist's auction house on Monday to a an anonymous buyer, the house's managing director Martin Biehl told Reuters.

He said the 2004 robbery of Munch's iconic painting ''The Scream'' from Oslo's Munch Museum, recovered by police in August, may have boosted the price.

''It's sad, but the news of the robbery and their recovery drew worldwide attention,'' Biehl said. ''And I think this attention can have had an impact on interest in Edvard Munch and perhaps also the prices.'' He said a major Munch exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art last spring had also helped put the Norwegian artist in the spotlight.

The most expensive print ever was a Picasso etching ''La Minotauromachie'', which sold for 1.5 million dollars in 1990, said Matthew Floris, spokesman for Sotheby's in London.

Previously, the highest price paid for a Munch print was 1.08 million dollars for a different version of ''Two Human Beings.

The Lonely Ones'', sold at Sotheby's in London last month.

The five-colour print auctioned on Monday depicts a man and a woman on a beach with a beam of moonlight reflected in the water behind them.

Edvard Munch, who lived from 1863 to 1944, was a pioneer of modern expressionism. His paintings can sell for tens of millions of dollars.

Reuters SP GC1114