NEW YORK (AFP).- "The Scream," Edvard Munch's eerie 1895 masterpiece which sold in May for $119.9 million, is on view for the first time since that record-breaking auction, at New York's Museum of Modern Art.

A spokeswoman said the artwork has been put on display in one of MoMA's most secure areas. It is being shown along with two other Munch paintings, as well as lithographs by the Norwegian artist.

"The installation is located in the fifth floor galleries for the museum's painting and sculpture collection, so it is in a location that already features considerable technology," Margaret Doyle, press officer for MoMA.

"The only additional element for 'The Scream' is the addition of a Plexiglas cover for the work," she said.

The work on display in New York, a crayon drawing on board, is one of four versions of "The Scream," and the only one currently not in Norway.

The Munch Museum in Oslo owns a version in pastel as well as a painted version, while the National Gallery of Norway holds the earliest version of the work, painted in 1893.

The well-known artwork, showing a ghostlike figure with a skull-like face and gaping mouth, is believed to represent the anguished existence of modern man. The image has been reproduced, and even satirized, countless times.

The work on loan to MoMA through April of next year, was sold in May at a record-setting auction in New York by Sotheby's.

Until then, the record for the most expensive artwork was held by Picasso's 1932 painting "Nude, Green, Leave and Bust," which in 2010 sold at a Christie's auction for $106.5 million.

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