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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class, a

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Speaker 1: show that proves there's more than one way to make history.

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Speaker 1: I'm Gabe Luesier, and in this episode we're looking at

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Speaker 1: the brazen theft of an iconic work of Norwegian art.

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Speaker 1: It's been nicknamed Norway's Mona Lisa for its renown, but

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Speaker 1: you probably know it simply as The Scream. The day

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Speaker 1: was February twelfth, nineteen ninety four. Edvard Monk's world famous

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Speaker 1: painting The Scream, was stolen from the National Gallery in Oslo, Norway.

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Speaker 1: The man responsible was professional footballer turned career criminal Paul Anger.

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Speaker 1: He had timed the audacious morning heist to coincide with

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Speaker 1: the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics, which were being

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Speaker 1: held in nearby Lillehammer. Anger correctly assumed that most of

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Speaker 1: Oslo's police force would be busy securing that massive event,

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Speaker 1: but in the end it hardly mattered one way or

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Speaker 1: the other. The security at the National Gallery was so

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Speaker 1: lax that Anger's two accomplices were able to break in,

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Speaker 1: snatch the painting, and escape in less than a minute.

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Speaker 1: They even had time to dash off a taunting note

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Speaker 1: to the museum thanks for the poor security. Paul Anger

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Speaker 1: first saw Edvard Monk's expressionist masterpiece The Scream on a

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Speaker 1: school trip as a child. At the time, he was

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Speaker 1: enduring the abuse of his violent stepfather. In the mood

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Speaker 1: of the painting, with its ominous orange red sky and

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Speaker 1: anguished waiflike figure, seemed to echo his own trauma. My

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Speaker 1: obsession with this picture started the first time I saw it,

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Speaker 1: Anger later recalled, as soon as I got close to

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Speaker 1: the picture, I got an extraordinary feeling of anxiety, strange

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Speaker 1: things in my head. I had such an intense connection

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Speaker 1: with The Scream right away, and it's never left me.

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Speaker 1: Anger's upbringing influenced his life in at least one other

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Speaker 1: way as well. He grew up in Oslow's Tovite A neighborhood,

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Speaker 1: an area known for its high crime rate in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventies. He began contributing to that reputation at an

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Speaker 1: early age, first by shoplifting candy from local stores and

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Speaker 1: later by robbing jewelry shops, boosting cars, and breaking into ATMs.

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Speaker 1: His swift embrace of a life of crime might lead

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Speaker 1: you to assume he had no other prospects, but far

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Speaker 1: from it. As a teenager, Anger honed his skills on

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Speaker 1: the football pitch and became a very promising athlete. In fact,

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Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty five, the year he turned eighteen, Anger

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Speaker 1: was recruited to play for uaal Oranga, Oslow's professional football club.

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Speaker 1: For the next several years, he lived a double life,

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Speaker 1: a rising star athlete by day and an expert safecracker

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Speaker 1: by night. That would have been more than enough excitement

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Speaker 1: for most people, but, as Anger later admitted, quote, I

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Speaker 1: wanted more. I always liked attention. I wanted money and fame,

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Speaker 1: but at that time I most wanted to show the

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Speaker 1: world I could pull off something huge. He decided the

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Speaker 1: best way to do that was to apply his skill

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Speaker 1: as a thief to his lifelong fixation on Edvard Monk's

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Speaker 1: The Scream. In nineteen eighty eight, Anger partnered with his

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Speaker 1: longtime accomplice Bjorn Gritdahl, and together they hatched a plan

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Speaker 1: to steal the iconic painting from Oslow's National Gallery. However,

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Speaker 1: they misjudged the artwork's position in the museum and wound

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Speaker 1: up stealing a different work by Monk called Vampire instead.

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Speaker 1: The pair was eventually caught after grit Dhal's neighbor learned

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Speaker 1: of the heist and turned them over to the police.

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Speaker 1: But even though Anger spent the next four years in prison,

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Speaker 1: a stint that cost him his sports career, he still

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Speaker 1: didn't give up on his dream of nabbing the Scream.

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Speaker 1: After his release in nineteen ninety two, Anger bided his

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Speaker 1: time and waited for the perfect opportunity to present itself.

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Speaker 1: The moment finally came on February twelfth, nineteen ninety four,

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Speaker 1: the opening day of that year's Winter Olympics in Lillehammer,

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Speaker 1: just two hours north from Oslow. Bafflingly, the museum hadn't

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Speaker 1: upgraded its security since Anger's last smash and grab, but

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Speaker 1: the thief still didn't want a risk being caught in

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Speaker 1: the act, so this time he enlisted the help of

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Speaker 1: an unhoused local named William Eyeshame. When the fateful day arrived,

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Speaker 1: Anger stayed home with his wife while Eyeshame and an

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Speaker 1: accomplice carried out his master plan. Only that morning, the

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Speaker 1: thieves used a ladder to climb up to a window

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Speaker 1: of the National Gallery. Then they simply broke the window,

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Speaker 1: climbed inside, grabbed the painting and left. They weren't seen

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Speaker 1: by a single soul during the minute long robbery, and

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Speaker 1: although the museum did have a few surveillance cameras, the

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Speaker 1: video was too blurry to be of use to the police.

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Speaker 1: News of the theft made headlines all over the world,

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Speaker 1: stealing the Olympics thunder and causing national embarrassment for Norway.

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Speaker 1: Anger was naturally the police's top suspect, as he had

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Speaker 1: already stolen a monk painting from the museum once before,

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Speaker 1: but with nothing to tie him to the crime, all

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Speaker 1: they could do was monitor his movements. Anger reveled in

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Speaker 1: that fact and taunted the police every chance he got.

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Speaker 1: He called in false leads just to waste their time,

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Speaker 1: and when his first son was born a few weeks

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Speaker 1: after the heist, he took out an ad in the

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Speaker 1: newspaper announcing that the boy had been born quote with

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Speaker 1: a screen. The Norwegian police had hit a brick wall

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Speaker 1: in their investigation, so they solicited help from a specialized

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Speaker 1: unit of London's Scotland Yard that dealt with art theft. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: Anger began to feel the heat from his crime, so

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Speaker 1: he started to try to fence his beloved painting through

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Speaker 1: a crooked art dealer named Ulving. It didn't take long

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Speaker 1: for Scotland Yard to catch wind of Olving's attempts to

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Speaker 1: find a buyer, so they arranged a meeting with him

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Speaker 1: at an Oslo hotel and sent along undercover detective Charlie

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Speaker 1: Hill to pose as a potential buyer from the Getty

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Speaker 1: Museum in California. By that point, about three months after

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Speaker 1: the heist, Anger was desperate to get the painting out

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Speaker 1: of his house as fast as possible, so he had

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Speaker 1: his longtime accomplice, Bjorn Gritdhal, stashed the scream at a

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Speaker 1: beachside cottage in a small village south of Oslow. Then

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Speaker 1: he told Ulving to sell the priceless painting for the

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Speaker 1: poultry sum of about four hundred thousand dollars. When Hill

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Speaker 1: met with Ulving, he happily agreed to the price and

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Speaker 1: the two of them drove out to the cottage to

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Speaker 1: retrieve the painting. Once there, Hill was able to identify

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Speaker 1: the artwork as the real deal thanks to a tell

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Speaker 1: tale pattern of wax droplets found just to the left

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Speaker 1: of the screaming subject's shoulder, a result of the artist

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Speaker 1: having blown out a candle on it. Ulving was arrested

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Speaker 1: on the spot, and soon after so were Gritdal, Eye,

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Speaker 1: Shame and lastly the Mastermind himself. The other men were

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Speaker 1: eventually released on technicalities, but Anger wound up serving six

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Speaker 1: years in prison, the longest sentence in Norwegian history for

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Speaker 1: art theft. During his time behind bars, Anger taught himself

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Speaker 1: to paint, and as a free man he is now

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Speaker 1: something of an in demand artist himself. His crime helped

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Speaker 1: him achieve the fame or infamy he had always longed for,

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Speaker 1: and as a result, he claims to have no regrets

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Speaker 1: whatsoever about stealing The Scream. I made history, he told

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Speaker 1: reporters in twenty twenty one, and it's a cool story.

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Speaker 1: Movies are made about things like that, but this wasn't

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Speaker 1: a movie. This was real life. Given Anger's bad example,

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Speaker 1: it's maybe no surprise that Monk's cryptic portrait of Distress

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Speaker 1: was later stolen again. To be fair, though it wasn't

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Speaker 1: the same copy stolen by Anger. Monk actually created four

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Speaker 1: versions of the same scene, two in paint and two

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Speaker 1: in pastels, but all of them confusingly titled the Scream.

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Speaker 1: The painted version Anger stole was the first exhibited way

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Speaker 1: back in eighteen ninety three. After its recovery, the painting

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Speaker 1: was returned to the National Gallery and now hangs under

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Speaker 1: much tighter security at the new National Museum in Oslo.

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Speaker 1: The other painted version belongs to the Monk Museum, also

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Speaker 1: in Oslo, and it's that copy that was stolen at

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Speaker 1: gunpoint in August of two thousand and four, along with

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Speaker 1: another Monk painting called the Madonna. Both of those works

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Speaker 1: were ultimately recovered as well, and in two thousand and

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Speaker 1: six three men were convicted in connection with the crime.

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Speaker 1: For anyone keeping track, that means that Norway's Mona Lisa

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Speaker 1: has technically been stolen more times than the actual Mona

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Speaker 1: Lisa two to one. It's definitely not a contest, but

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Speaker 1: at least as far as our thieves are concerned. In

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Speaker 1: enigmatic smile just can't match the allure of a mysterious screen.

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Speaker 1: I'm Gabe Lucier and hopefully you now know a little

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Speaker 1: more about history today than you did yesterday. If you

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Speaker 1: enjoyed today's episode, consider keeping up with us on Twitter, Facebook,

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Speaker 1: send your feedback directly by writing to This Day at

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Speaker 1: iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show,

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Speaker 1: and thanks to you for listening, and I'll see you

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Speaker 1: back here again tomorrow for another Day in History class