Taking advantage of Olympic-fueled distraction and thin security, burglars used a ladder to smash a gallery window and grab The Scream, one of the most recognizable images in Western art. They left behind a mocking note thanking the museum for its poor security. The painting was recovered undamaged three months later.
Norway had just hosted the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, and national attention, along with much of the world's, was fixed on the games rather than on museum security. Thieves exploited the moment, propping a ladder against the National Gallery's wall in broad daylight, smashing a window, and lifting the 1893 masterpiece off its hooks in under a minute.
The theft became an international sensation precisely because the painting itself was so recognizable, a swirling, anguished face that had become shorthand for existential dread in twentieth-century popular culture. Police recovered the artwork in May of that year in an operation that involved undercover officers posing as art buyers.
The brazen simplicity of the heist, no elaborate tunneling or high-tech gadgetry, just a ladder and audacity, became something of a cautionary tale in museum security circles, prompting galleries worldwide to reassess how casually they guarded even their most famous holdings.
Key people: Edvard Munch