Culture Re-View: Edvard Munch 'The Scream' is stolen in broad daylight

The theft of Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’, along with his ‘Madonna’, was possibly one of the least subtle crimes in history, with masked gunmen entering the Munch Museum in daytime.

You might think it would be close to impossible to steal work from such a famous artist from a museum dedicated to his honour, but the two masked men proved otherwise.

On 22 August 2004, the pair risked instant arrest in the museum and outside, despite photographic evidence of their crime. 

Even at a time when mobile phone cameras were rudimentary, a bystander managed to get a snapshot of the thieves fleeing the museum.

At 11:20 local time, the pair entered the space, armed with a .357 Magnum pistol.

Startled visitors recall seeing them simply amble up to ‘The Scream’, pull it off the wall, then grab the ‘Madonna’ during their swift exit.

Witnesses said no alarms went off when the paintings were stolen. French radio producer François Castang said at the time that the paintings were only attached to the wall by wire.

“All you had to do is [sic] pull on the painting hard for the cord to break loose, which is what I saw one of the thieves doing”, he explained.

Law enforcement were baffled and failed to make an arrest until eight months later, on 8 April 2005.

At that time, they hadn’t yet recovered the paintings and there were fears that they had been burned by the suspects to hide evidence of the crime.

That same year, six men in total were arrested and charged, but the paintings remained nowhere to be found.

Stepping up the investigation

In June 2005, Oslo offered an award of 2 million Norwegian krone (around €173.5m in today’s money) for information leading to the recovery of the artworks.

The hunt became even more surreal when the confectionary company