Stealing Munch

Stealing Munch

On August 22, 2004, Norway lost a national icon when armed robbers stole Edvard Munch's painting, The Scream from the Munch Museum in the Tyen neighborhood of Oslo. Two masked thieves entered the museum in broad daylight, pulled the work and another painting, The Madonna, off the wall as guards and visitors watched, and sped away in a waiting vehicle. The car was later recovered outside some nearby tennis courts, along with the gun that was used to threaten museum staff during the robbery. Neither the paintings nor the thieves have been found, however, and the crime has left Norway and the art world wondering how security at a major museum could have failed to protect some of Norway's most important national treasures. Museum security has since been beefed up, but is it enough? Norwegian paintings have been the target of art thieves in the past.

On the opening day of the 1994 Winter Olympic Games in Lillehammer, another Scream painting—Munch painted four versions altogether—was stolen from the Norwegian National Gallery. The painting was later discovered undamaged in a hotel room, and three suspects were arrested.

In an incident in 1988, The Vampire was stolen from the Munch Museum but was later recovered. And most recently, in March 2005 three Munch paintings were taken from a hotel in Moss, in southern Norway. These were also recovered, three days after the theft.

Despite this series of thefts, Norway is known for being a very safe country where people often leave their doors unlocked and where public parks and monuments, such as the Royal Palace, don't have gates. Until the late 1990s Norway continually recorded insignificant crime rates. Police numbers, even in the capital of Oslo, were considered low compared to other European cities, and armed robbery continues to be rare. As the country moves toward modernization, however, one side effect has been an increase in unemployment, inner-city drug problems and crime.

While officials in Oslo work toward keeping the general crime rate low, investigators are still looking for The Scream and The Madonna, which are worth an estimated $19 million together. In April 2005, three men were arrested for the crime but the paintings are still missing.

As was expected, the Munch Museum revealed that the stolen paintings were not insured against theft. Indeed, many international galleries and collectors do not insure their art, either because they cannot afford to pay for insurance or they don't think they will need it. Theft continues to plague the art world, however, at least in galleries where security is minimal. Thousands of famous paintings and works of art are displayed uninsured across galleries worldwide, and an estimated $8 billion worth of art is stolen each year.

A year after The Scream disappeared, the Munch Museum announced the completion of a $6 million security upgrade that took 10 months to put into place. Visitors to the museum can expect to find metal detectors and bulletproof glass in front of some much safer paintings.