Stolen paintings, and Chamar pop | #147
Who was the first Indian to present at the Oscars? 🎥
Friends,
Welcome to the wacky world of art heists, where the line between masterpieces and master criminals becomes as blurry as a watercolor left in the rain! Get ready to dive into a palette of peculiar plots, as we paint a picture of some of the most (in)famous art thefts ever known.
Here’s season one of Monet Heist.
Things we learnt this week 🤓
Q: What is common to the two Edvard Munch paintings - ‘Vampire’ and ‘Scream’?
A: They were both stolen by the same man!
It’s true! The two paintings were stolen by a Norwegian professional footballer named Pål Enger aka P.Enger. (Incidentally penger is the word for money in Norwegian) Even with his modest salary, he’d spend a lot of money on watches, clothes, and the finer things in life. Two of his teammates who happened to be cops, grew suspicious and raided his house. They found ‘Vampire’ hanging on his wall. After serving time for the theft, he was contacted by a mystery employer who wanted him to steal ‘Scream’. Enger, ever eager, hired 2 accomplices and stole it on the day of the opening ceremony of the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Olympics, as every Norwegian had tuned into the opening ceremony. He was later caught and served 6 more years in prison. In another twist, Pål Enger is now a painter who specializes in abstract art. This story deserves its own series called Enger’s Game.
On 21st August 1911, people walked into Salon Carré, inside the Louvre museum and spotted a prominent painting missing. It was the Mona Lisa.
Here’s what happened: A man named Vincenzo Peruggia walked into the Louvre at 7am wearing a white smock like other employees, saw the Mona Lisa in the empty Salon Carré, lifted the painting off the iron pegs that had secured it to the wall and took it to a nearby staircase. He then removed his smock, wrapped the painting in it and then walked out the same door that he came in. He returned to Italy with it, and kept it in his Florence apartment. He was eventually caught when he tried to contact an art gallery owner. While the painting was famous before the theft, the notoriety it received from the newspaper headlines and the large-scale police investigation helped the artwork become one of the best known in the world. And now, the Mona Lisa smirks in the Louvre, knowing she had the ultimate Eurotrip.
Two men with very fake moustaches, walked into the Isabella Gardner Stewart Museum in Boston one fine day in 1990. They claimed to be from the Boston police department responding to a tip. Over the next hour, they tied up all the security guards and made away with 13 paintings valued to be over $500M. Yikes! The thieves cut out the paintings from the frames and if you ever visit the museum today, you will see frames without any paintings in the gallery. It is not to remember the theft, but a stipulation in the will of Isabella Gardner that no modifications will ever be done to the museum. The case to this day is unsolved. So, the empty frames serve as a constant reminder that even the art world isn't immune to a bad case of "stache and grab."
From IWTK, with love 💌
Ever heard of Chamar Pop? It is a fusion of contemporary pop and traditional Chamar folk music and is a defiant roar of culture and identity. Learn more here.
3 Indians have presented at the Oscars so far and all are women. Woohoo! Know who they are.
Only In India 🇮🇳
One way to overcome pay disparity is to know how much a man makes for the same role. Wonder how one can find out. Here’s an idea:
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❤️ IWTK