Robbers steal The Scream

2004-08-22 13:59

Oslo - Edvard Munch's famous paintings The Scream, Madonna and others were stolen from an art museum on Sunday while stunned museum-goers watched armed men threatening the staff at gunpoint as they took the art work to a waiting car.

"We don't have all the details on the situation, but we are searching for the suspects in the air and on land," Police spokesperson Kjell Moerk told the public radio network NRK.

A French radio producer, Francois Castang, said he was visiting the Munch Museum in Oslo when thieves burst in and made off with the paintings, including the painter's depiction of an anguished figure with its head in its hands.

"What's strange is that in this museum, there weren't any means of protection for the paintings, no alarm bell," Castang told France Inter radio.

"The paintings were simply attached by wire to the walls," he said. "All you had to do is pull on the painting hard for the cord to break loose - which is what I saw one of the thieves doing."

Castang said police arrived on the scene 15 minutes later. Visitors were ushered into the museum's cafeteria.

In February 1994, The Scream was stolen from the museum and remained missing for nearly three months. Police ultimately recovered the work, which is on fragile paper, undamaged in a hotel in Asgardstrand, about 65km south of the capital, Oslo. Three Norwegians were arrested.

At the time, investigators said the trio tried to ransom the painting, demanding US$1m from the government. it was never paid.

Munch, a Norwegian painter and graphic artist who worked in Germany as well as his home country, developed an emotionally charged style that was of great importance in the birth of the 20th century Expressionist movement.

He painted The Scream in 1893, as part of his Frieze of Life series, in which sickness, death, anxiety, and love are central themes. He died in 1944 at the age of 81.

The National Art Museum owns 58 paintings by Munch.

- AP