Oh, no. Not again!

Yep, it's deja view all over again!

Edvard Munch's priceless paintings 'The Scream' 
and 'Madonna' have been stolen by armed 
robbers.               

The Munch Museum in Oslo said the thieves threatened 
staff at gunpoint before escaping with the masterpieces in a waiting car.

One witness, Radio producer Francois Castang, was 
visiting the museum when the thieves burst in. 

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

"The paintings were simply attached by wire to the walls," he said.       

Mr Castang saw the thieves simply pull the painting from the wall.    

Police arrived on the scene 15 minutes later. 

And the theives: 

Full article here

On an personal note.  You will notice that they 
are driving a hatch-back -- this is a *major*
consideration when buying a car (not so much
for art thieves (the skum! see article below)
but for art students:  How can I get my painting
home from the art school in my car????

It was previously stolen in 1994;

In 1994, Edvard Munch's famous work "The Scream" was 
stolen from an Oslo gallery, while Norwegians were 
distracted by the opening of the Winter Olympics in 
nearby Lillehammer. Two thieves entered through a 
window, setting off an alarm in the process, which 
was ignored by the gallery's guard. They even left a 
note: "Thanks for the poor security."
(link below)



More on the theft!

Full story here

'The Scream' theft stuns Norway
23/08/2004 - 17:37:38 

A nationwide hunt was under way today for armed 
thieves who forced their way into a lightly guarded 
Oslo museum and ripped the Edvard Munch masterpiece 
The Scream and another painting from the wall as 
stunned visitors watched in shock.

Despite a large number of leads, police had not made 
any arrests 24 hours after the daring daylight raid 
at Oslo’s Munch Museum, which set off a debate about 
poor security at art museums in the Scandinavian 
country.

“It can only be with horror that you react to 
something like this,” Deputy Culture Minister Yngve 
Slettholm said, expressing shock over what he said 
was Norway’s first armed art theft.

“We can only hope they end up back at the Munch 
Museum.”

The Scream – a painting Munch made in four versions – 
depicts an anguished figure appearing to be 
screaming, or listening to a scream, while holding 
his hands to his head.

It was loaded into a waiting car along with another 
famous Munch work, Madonna. The getaway car and the 
picture frames were found by police in Oslo hours 
after the robbery.

“‘We are working with tips. Many tips are coming and 
have been all day ... It takes time to go through,” 
said Inspector Iver Stensrud, of the Oslo police, at 
a news conference.

He said there had been no word from the thieves about 
a possible demand for a ransom, and that there were 
no suspects.

“The paintings could just as well be in Oslo as 
anywhere else,” Stensrud said. “For me to say 
anything else would just be speculation.”

Stensrud said the getaway car had been filled with 
the powder from a fire extinguished to cover 
evidence, and that it could take days to clean up 
enough to find forensic evidence.

He declined to speculate on motives, but art experts 
said the paintings were probably stolen for ransom or 
as a “trophy” robbery to impress other criminals, 
since it would be virtually impossible to sell them 
anywhere because they are so well known.

The Munch works were not insured against theft, 
because it was impossible to set a price on them, 
said John Oeyaas, managing director of Oslo 
Forsikring, the city-owned company that insure the 
paintings against damage.

“It was a conscious decision,” he said. “These are 
irreplaceable, and insurance would mean nothing. The 
total loss of an irreplaceable item cannot be 
compensated ... In principle, these are artworks that 
are not possible to sell.”

However, he said the theft in broad daylight from one 
of Norway’s most visited museums raises the question 
of security -“How can we make these artworks 
available to the public while still securing them?”

It’s the second time in a decade that a version of 
the iconic painting has been stolen. Another version 
of The Scream was stolen from Oslo’s National Gallery 
in February 1994, but recovered three months later.

Slettholm, of the Culture Ministry, said it was 
impossible to totally protect artworks “unless we 
lock them in a mountain bunker”.


Entire article here




Web links
Art theft

Cool article:

Art is a funny thing. Artists tend to struggle in 
poverty throughout their lives, then the value of 
their works skyrockets as soon as they kick it. 

Just to add insult to injury, their work is then 
subjected to looting and professional thievery, 
sometimes ending up hidden in the secret library of a wealthy collector, never to be seen again.