Pål Enger, art thief who stole Edvard Munch’s masterpiece The Scream – obituary

Pål Enger, who has died aged 57, was a failed footballer who became an art thief notorious for stealing two paintings by Edvard Munch, Love and Pain and The Scream; having taken up painting in prison, he eventually exhibited his own works, before reverting to type and stealing others’. His former lawyer described him as a “gentleman thief”, and he became something of a folk hero in Norway.

Pål Enger was born in Tveita, a poor area of the Norwegian capital, Oslo, on March 26 1967. He grew up in the embraces of the Tveita Gang, led by a money-lender and debt-collector named Jan Kvalen, and aged 16 he was sentenced to a year in prison.

He was, though, a promising young footballer, and he played a few first-team games for the top-flight Oslo side Vålerenga, including one in the Uefa Cup. But he was also a promising young criminal, raiding ATMs and jewellery shops, and he was jailed again.

Prison did not rehabilitate him, and when he got out Enger resumed his old life. On February 23 1988, with his partner in crime Bjorn Grytdal, he climbed through a window at the Munch Museum and stole Munch’s Love and Pain.

But by then two of his Valerenga teammates, who were both policemen, had noticed that although Enger appeared not to have a second job, as all Norwegian footballers did, he lived a flush lifestyle. Intrigued, they followed him round Oslo and soon realised that he was an experienced thief, and when police raided his home they found Love and Pain hanging on the wall.

Enger was sent down for four years, time he used to think about stealing The Scream. He had been obsessed with Munch’s best-known painting since seeing it on a school trip – he said it reminded him of what his violent stepfather had made him feel – and he would go to the National Gallery in Oslo at least twice a week to look at it.

His plans reached fruition on February 12 1994, when two of his associates put a ladder up against the wall of the gallery, climbed through a window and took the painting, leaving behind a note that read “Thanks for the poor security”. The whole venture took less than a minute.

The gallery refused to pay a ransom and enlisted British help, including Tony Russell, an expert in recovering stolen art. Two British police officers posed as a representative of an art foundation wanting the painting and his minder. They called themselves “Chuck” and “Sid” and agreed to buy the painting for about $500,000.

They set up a meeting in the car park of a motorway rest area. “Sid” and two of the thieves remained in a hotel room with the money, awaiting a phone call from “Chuck” telling him to hand over the money once he had seen the painting. “Chuck” did that, but also put in a call to Detective Chief Inspector John Butler, head of Scotland Yard’s fine art squad, who was nearby. Enger was arrested with three others, including his sidekick Bjorn Grytdal, and given a six-year jail sentence.

It later transpired that for all his apparent love of The Scream, Enger had been put up to the robbery by his old pals in the Tveita Gang, whose style had been cramped by a police crackdown. The heist was designed to take the heat off them – and they pulled off several successful bank jobs in the following weeks.

In 1999 Enger absconded from his open prison and infuriated the authorities by giving press and television interviews in a fashionable Oslo cafe. He was eventually arrested wearing sunglasses and a blond wig trying to board a train to Copenhagen.

Back in prison in 2007 he took up painting – animals at first, and then abstracts – and in 2011 he had a solo exhibition in Oslo. In 2015 he stole 17 paintings from a gallery in the city – but was arrested after leaving his wallet and ID card at the scene.

His exploits were documented last year in the television documentary The Man who Stole The Scream. When he died a spokesman for Vålerenga FC speculated how good a player he might have been. He said Enger had told him that he may not have been the best footballer but he was the best criminal, so had decided to stick to thieving.

Pål Enger never married, but told an interviewer that he had had “four children with four different mothers from four countries”.

Pål Enger, born March 26 1967, died June 29 2024