Stolen Munch Masterpieces on Display in Norway

(AP Photo/Stian Lysberg Solum / Scanpix Norway) :: GroBalas, chairperson of the board at the MunchMuseum in Oslo, stands in front of EdvardMunch's painting "Madonna" Wednesday May 21, 2008. EdvardMunchmasterpieces "The Scream" and "Madonna" are back on display after comprehensive efforts to repair damage sustained when they were stolen from an Oslomuseum by gunmen in August 2004. Museum official also say they have revised their estimate of when the Norwegian artist painted their unsigned and undated version of "The Scream" to 1910 from 1893. Damage is clearly visible to both paintings, which the news media saw at a preview on Wednesday of the exhibition that opens to the public this week. The museum experts say moisture damage to the lower left corner of "The Scream" cannot be repaired with current technology. The paintings were recovered a year after their theft.

By Associated Press
DOUG MELLGREN
Updated: 5/21/2008

OSLO, Norway

Edvard Munch's masterpiece ''The Scream'' goes back on display this week for the first time since it was stolen four years ago but has suffered permanent damage, museum officials said Wednesday.

Masked gunmen stole the work and another Munch masterpiece, ''Madonna,'' in a brazen daylight raid on the Munch Museum in August 2004. Police recovered the paintings, considered priceless, over a year later. Two men have been convicted and sentenced.

The two works show signs of damage despite extensive restoration. At a preview of the exhibition called ''The Scream and Madonna Revisited,'' which opens Friday, water damage to the lower left corner of ''The Scream'' was clearly visible, as were scrapes to both paintings.

''There has been an extremely comprehensive process to restore the paintings. There was significant damage,'' said Gro Balas, a spokesman for the city of Oslo, which owns the museum. ''There is still a moisture stain on 'The Scream' that cannot be repaired.''

''The Scream'' probably is the best known of Munch's emotionally charged works and was a major influence on the Expressionist movement. In four versions of the painting, a waif-like figure is apparently screaming or hearing a scream. The image has become a modern icon of human anxiety.

The museum said it concluded during its restoration of the unsigned and undated version of ''The Scream'' that it was most likely painted in 1910 rather than 1893 as believed earlier.

Balas and museum experts said they would keep looking for new restoration techniques.

Damage to ''Madonna'' included cuts and tears that were repaired by gluing threads of canvas in the damaged areas back together one at a time, said Mette Havrevold, who led the restoration effort. She said the damage that can still be seen in the painting will be repaired later in the year.

''It has been a long process, and the past year and a half has been marked by hard work and long days,'' she said about the restoration.

Security was stepped up dramatically after the theft, with scanners and metal detectors like those used at airports installed at the museum.

''The Scream'' and ''Madonna'' were part of Munch's ''Frieze of Life'' series, in which sickness, death, anxiety and love are central themes. He died in 1944 at the age of 80.

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On the Net:

www.munch.museum.no