Name this artist?

Question

A friend and I were discussing painters, and she referred to an artist who, after his wife had died, essentially went mad and began painting nothing but redheaded women. She couldn't recall his name. Sounds to me like an amalgam of several different painters. Googling didn't get me far.

Answer 1

Edward Munch did lead a tragic life but there is no record of him ever marrying; and no evidence that he obssesively painted red-haired women.
http://cremesti.com/krasiva/painters/Edvard_Munch/html/bio.htm
As you say, you and your friend may have been thinking about several different painters. The one fitting your description most closely is pre-Raphaelite painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rossett concerning his wife and muse Elizabeth Eleanor Rossetti nee Siddal 1829-1862. (model for Millais' Ophelia), a strikingly beautiful red-head. (All the PreRaphaelites painted red-headed women).
After the birth of a dead child, (and she also got ill from lying for hours in the water while Millais painted her (she took an overdose of laudanum. The story goes that Rossetti placed a manuscript of poems in Lizzie’s coffin just before it was closed. She was buried at Highgate Cemetery. In 1868 Gabriel had her body exhumed so that he could retrieve the poems and publish them. The exhumation was arranged privately, at night. Rossetti was not present. A tale began to circulate that Lizzie’s beautiful hair had continued to grow after death filling the coffin!
http://lizziesiddal.com/portal/?page_id=23

Answer 2

This could be Evard Munch (the artist who painted 'The Scream'). I do remember that Munch tragically lost his long time lover, lost his mother when he was a boy, lost his sister when she was fourteen and Munch did go mad later in life and he did do at least several paintings of red-headed women.