Paal Enger, who stole Munch’s “The Scream,” has died at the age of 57

Paal Enger, a rising talent at a celebrated Norwegian football club who traded a game he loved for another – art theft – that he enjoyed immensely and culminated in his infamous 1994 theft of Edvard Munch’s masterpiece “The Scream”, died in Oslo on June 29. He was 57.

His death was confirmed by Nils Christian Nordhus, an Oslo-based lawyer who had previously represented Mr Enger. He did not provide further details.

Mr Enger, who was born in Oslo on 26 March 1967, comes from the youth ranks of Valerenga, a five-time champion of the Norwegian top division, now known as the Eliteserien, and made his debut for the club in 1985.

As a teenager, he was a fan of Argentine soccer star Diego Maradona. But his real hero, according to a 2021 profile by The Athletic, was Don Vito Corleone, the fictional crime boss played by Marlon Brando in The Godfather. He was so immersed in mafia history that at 15, he flew to New York to see the filming locations of the Oscar-winning The Godfather films for himself.

By this point, he was no stranger to life outside the law. “I grew up in Tveita, east of Oslo, and people there don’t have much money,” he said in an interview with British tabloid The Sun last year. “We started crime when we were very young, and I found it exciting. I continued because I really enjoyed it.”

From selling candy to cracking safes and blowing up ATMs with neighborhood friends, he proved to be a phenomenon in both sports and on the criminal level.

His outlaw alter ego was no secret to his teammates. They noticed that he threw away his tracksuits after every training session instead of washing them and that he frequently showed up in luxury cars that were well beyond a teenager’s budget. “I remember him turning up one time in a BMW 735i,” a former teammate told The Athletic. “He liked to steal expensive cars, there’s no doubt about that.”

Despite his penchant for theft, most in the squad considered him a model teammate, even if his activities outside the law allowed him to live like a superstar. “I committed so many crimes in my twenties,” he told The Sun, “that I had everything – cars, boats, money, the most beautiful women in Oslo. But I wanted more.”

More specifically, he wanted one of his country’s crown jewels. “The Scream,” also known as Norway’s “Mona Lisa,” is one of the most famous – and most reproduced – paintings in the world.

Munch, known for his haunting expressionist paintings that explored themes of sexuality and madness, actually created four versions of The Scream, two in color and two in pastel and colored pencil. The only privately owned painting, an 1895 pastel, was sold at auction in 2012 to financier Leon Black for nearly $120 million.

Bearing psychological scars from his childhood with an abusive stepfather, Mr. Enger has found a kindred spirit in the tortured howl of the painting’s ghostly subject, an expression of both personal torment and a broader existential angst.

“My obsession with this image began when I first saw it,” Enger said in “The Man Who Stole ‘The Scream,'” a documentary released last year. “As soon as I approached the image, I was overcome by an extraordinary feeling. Fear. Strange things in my head. I immediately had such an intense connection to ‘The Scream.’ And it has never left me.”

He was used to simply taking whatever he wanted and decided that the famous painting should be no exception.

In 1988, Enger, accompanied by his friend and long-time accomplice Björn Grytdal, slipped through a window at the Munch Museum in Oslo to steal a version of The Scream. But a glitch in their plan led them to steal another Munch masterpiece instead: Love and Pain, also known as The Vampire.

“The disappointment lasted for days,” Enger later recalled, “but then it started to be fun.” That was partly because he had hidden the painting in the ceiling of a pool hall he owned and which was frequented by off-duty police officers.

“They don’t know it’s hanging just a few feet away from them,” he added. “That was the best feeling. We let them play for free just to have them there.”

The fun ended when his accomplice told a neighbor who was a police informant. Mr. Enger spent four years in prison for the theft, effectively ending any hope of football glory.

Nevertheless, his ambition burned unabated and he turned his gaze back to his muse and prey.

On February 12, 1994, Norway’s attention – and a considerable amount of police resources – was focused on the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer.

Enger took advantage of the distraction. He and an accomplice climbed a ladder outside the National Gallery in Oslo, smashed a window and slipped inside – and within 50 seconds, The Athletic reported, they disappeared with the museum’s version of “The Scream,” which was valued at around $55 million at the time.

The thieves left behind the ladder, their wire cutters and a note: “Thank you so much for your lack of security.”

Given his past, Mr. Enger was an obvious suspect. Nevertheless, he knew the police had nothing against him, so he began taunting them and calling them with false clues.

“I don’t think I really understood what this meant to the National Gallery, the police and everyone else,” he said later. “I made a fool of them on national television.”

The baffled authorities finally turned to Scotland Yard, which sent Charles Hill, a detective from the art and antiquities department, to Norway. Mr. Hill, who posed as a representative of the J. Paul Getty Museum in California, expressed interest in buying “The Scream” from an art dealer who was connected with Mr. Enger.

Despite concerns about the highly unlikely scenario that a prestigious museum would pay for a stolen masterpiece, Mr. Enger sent Mr. Grytdal, one of his accomplices in the theft, to negotiate a deal.

“I thought, ‘Maybe I’ve had it long enough,'” Mr Enger later recalled. “Maybe I should just give up all these dreams I had about the upcoming game. I was absolutely sure that the police had almost no evidence against me, so the only person they could arrest was Björn.”

This also proved to be a highly unlikely scenario. Three months after the theft, the police arrested Mr Enger, Mr Grytdal and two other accomplices.

Mr. Enger once said he had “four children with four different mothers from four countries.” Information about survivors was not immediately available.

In 1996, Mr. Enger was sentenced to six years and three months in prison. There he began to paint and was stylistically inspired by his artistic role model.

After his release, he started his own art career. In 2011, his abstract paintings were exhibited in a gallery in Norway.

Nevertheless, he did not come clean. In 2015, he was accused of stealing 17 paintings from an Oslo gallery.

However, that does not mean that he was completely opposed to acquiring art legally. In 2001, he bought an unsigned Munch lithograph at auction for around $3,000.

As he was leaving the auction house that day, he happened to meet the former head of security at the National Gallery. “Congratulations,” he said to Mr Enger. “It’s great that you actually bought a Munch – much better than stealing one.”