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A True Story of Art, Thieves, and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece
Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Jun 2005, 270 pages
Paperback:
Jul 2006, 320 pages
This article relates to The Rescue Artist
Edvard Munch,
Norway's most popular artist,
died in 1944, aged 81. He was a
painter, lithographer, etcher
and wood engraver, most famous
for his paintings of The
Scream. . He created five different variations of
The Scream (4 paintings and
one lithograph) which is
fortunate as the Norwegians do
seem to have a habit of losing
them. In 1994 one was stolen
from Oslo's National Gallery,
and then in 2004 another
version was stolen from the
Munch Museum (a tempura
on cardboard version) along with
Munch's Madonna.
Three men have been convicted of
the 2004 theft but the painting
has not been recovered. You
can read the fascinating story
of the 1994 theft (which reads
like something out of an
Inspector Clouseau movie) and
eventual recovery in
The Rescue Artist. (A
photograph of the thieves
getting away with the two
paintings).
Some years after
completing the paintings, Munch
wrote in his diary (in reference to his inspiration for The Scream), "I felt a trace of
sadness and the sky suddenly
turned blood red. I stopped
walking, leaned against the
railing...I watched the flaming
clouds over the fjord.....I
stood there shaking with fear
and I felt a great unending
scream penetrate unending
nature."
Some scientists now
believe that the vivid sunset
Munch saw was caused by the
fallout from
Krakatoa's eruption, which caused exceptional
sunsets across Europe
in the winter of 1883-4.
This "beyond the book article" relates to The Rescue Artist. It originally ran in August 2005 and has been updated for the
July 2006 paperback edition.
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