Scream For Beer T-Shirt

by Tom Warin

Scream For Beer T-Shirt
(CafePress)

The often-stolen The Scream by Edward Munch exists in 5 different versions: two painted, two in pastels and one lithograph. At least, that is what art historians would like you to believe. In fact, Munch produced several more versions, which have been kept secret for various reasons.

This T-Shirt design shows the Pilsner Scream, which Munch painted at the behest of ale brewers who were desperate to undermine the popularity of light lagers coming out of Bohemia and Germany. This version was originally suppressed when the Pilsner brewers paid Munch a large sum of money to do so. It is now kept secret because art historians deem it to be "too commercial".

The original can be found in a locked vault in the sub-sub-sub- basement of the Louvre, along with several other secret masterpieces such as Monet's Woman With a Beer and DaVinci's great masterpiece of brewing-meets-art, the Corona Lisa.

The story of how this vault was penetrated by a band of intrepid beer historians is a thrilling one full of unexpected twists and turns, sudden betrayals, a moonlit chase across the rooftops of Paris and a tense standoff with the dastardly Baron DuPre on the banks of the Seine. Another time, perhaps.