The creator of the world famous painting The Scream had a finger shot off over a woman, and hung his art works from apple trees to "mature".

Obsession drove the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch to paint not what he saw, but how he felt - turning him into one of the founders of modern art.

Now a new exhibition of more than 150 of his self-portraits reveals how he used art to cope with life, love and loneliness. Now open at London's Royal academy of Arts (RAA), it spans over 60 years of his career.

Tempestuous affair

Munch often depicted his complex relationships with women, shaped by the early deaths of his mother and elder sister Sophie from tuberculosis.

In his early 30s he started a tempestuous affair with Tulla Larsen, the tall red-headed daughter of a rich Norwegian wine merchant. Eager to escape her bourgeoisie background, she demanded to marry him.

But Munch feared it would hamper his creativity. Still, she followed him on his travels across Europe, causing him to hide in a sanatorium at one point.

The four-year relationship ended in 1902 with a fight between the drunken lovers. Larsen threatened to shoot herself if Munch left. As he tried to wrestle the revolver from her, a shot went off, lodging a bullet into his middle-finger. It had to be removed in an operation, leaving him with a missing digit as a permanent reminder of Larsen.

Nine months later she married another painter, Arne Kavli, who was 9 years her junior.

However, the affair haunted Munch for years. In 1905 he painted himself looking at Larsen, before cutting the canvas in half to separate their faces.

His series The Death of Marat portrayed the shooting as a murder drama in which his corpse lies naked on a bloody bed, while Larsen, also naked, stands unrepentant next to it.

Although the works' title refers to Charlotte Corday's murder of the French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat, Munch was not concerned with its historical weight, said curator Iris Muller-Westermann. He only used it as an analogy for women's power over men.

Making sense of modern life

Masters like Rembrandt, Van Gogh and Picasso also painted themselves throughout their lives, the curator added. But for Munch art was a "very ambitious project". He did not try to create works that "looks nice in nice living rooms", but to make sense of "life as a modern individual".

His first solo exhibition in Berlin, held at age 29, caused a scandal. It was forced to close within a week, turning Munch into a celebrity. He remained in the German capital and became part of its Scandinavian Bohemian circle, along with Swedish author August Strindberg and Polish writer Stanislaw Przybyszewski.

Again and again he portrayed himself as the outsider: naked on a cross with his fellow Bohemians laughing at him; bleeding on an operating table with student watching.

Nervous breakdown

Despite his growing reputation as a portrait painter, Munch started to drink more and more. In 1908 a nervous breakdown landed him in a Copenhagan clinic for nine months, during which he received electric shock treatment.

Yet he was hesitant to be cured. "I would not cast off my illness, for there is much in my art that I owe to it," he wrote.

After his recovery, he stopped drinking and returned to Norway. His palette became lighter and his brush strokes bolder. Ruthless intensity made room for a new-found balance.

International fame followed a 1912 exhibition in Cologne, where Munch was presented as one of the four fathers of 20th century art, next to Paul Cezanne, Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh.

Paintings on trees

Despite the success, Munch lived in seclusion at his mansion in Ekely, outside Kristiania (now Oslo). Sometimes he hung his paintings from the apple trees in his garden to dry and "mature", Muller Westermann said.

At his death in 1944 Munch, aged 80, left more than 1,000 paintings, 15,000 graphic images, diaries and sketchbooks to the city of Oslo. The RAA exhibition is drawn mainly from this collection.

Those looking for The Scream will find only a smallish litograph of the famous oil version that became an icon of modern man's angst.

The exhibition is an entirely new take on Munch. It takes you on a journey from emotional uproar to a place of silence. And along the way you realise there is much more to Munch than just a scream.

  • Edvard Munch by Himself runs at the Royal Academy of Arts in Piccadilly, London, from 1 October to 11 December. Full charge admission £8. Book at 0870 848 8484 or www.royalacademy.org.uk.