It started with a letter.
From a stockbroker Rolf E. Stenersen to Aker municipality, dated 16.april 1936: “When I very like to see my collection of recent Norwegian art made available to the public, I allow me hereby to provide the municipality of my collection as a gift. The assumption here is, however, that the municipality within three years from today to obtain the collection a suitable local”.
the art Collection there was talk about, consisted of many hundreds of works. By well-known artists such as Edvard Munch, Erik Harry Johannesen, Jacob Weidemann and Ludvig Karsten. Rolf E. Stenersens gift company was worth huge sums of money, even with the exchange rate.
Dagbladet reveals: Valuable Munch-images are gone – without Munchmuseet was aware of it.
But, to resort to an extremely stale internettklisje: You will not believe what happened next.
THURSDAY THIS WEEK wrote the Newspaper about the fate of the Stenersen collection. About that, when Aker was merged with Oslo in 1948, was incorporated into the city of Oslo art collections. About the museum that didn’t come into place until the nineties. About the valuable art that was hung unsecured on the walls at Sogn studentby in the fifty-sixties and seventies. In the bedrooms, in the times, in the restaurant. About the pictures that are slowly, but surely, was marinated in cigarette smoke, matos and ølskum. About the pictures that were cut out of the frame and replaced with familiefoto, added in the attic, hidden in the basement, replaced. About the pictures that disappeared. About the pictures that were stolen. About the enormous Munch painting “the Story”, as some cut out of the frame at the restaurant, took with him under his arm and finally dumped in the frogner park.
you Go near the painting, you can apparently see clear marks from the knife.
a total Of at least 47 works of art disappeared from the Stenersensamlingen. The Munch museum took over the responsibility for the Stenersen collection in 2010.
Thursday could Dagbladet reveal that the six pictures, the Munch museum thought they had, also turns out to be hollows away. It is almost not to believe. It is a scandal.
Unfortunately it is not unique.
ONLY one year ago, the Newspaper wrote about the city of Oslo art collections, about how the whole 1642 images are recorded as “not found” in their lists of the art collection of approx. 19.000 works. 1642 missing work. From among the other great Norwegian artists such as Frans Widerberg, Kjell Aukrust, Jacob Weidemann, Christian Krogh, Erik Werenskiold and Nikolai Astrup.
Oslo municipality had no idea that this artwork was missed: Then popped it up with a brukthandler in Hokksund
In addition: Of the 23 works of art that were registered as “stolen” by the city of Oslo, only four reported to the police, wrote the newspaper Dagbladet in may. Although Blomqvist could estimate that the overall was the art to a value of nok 300,000 nok. It is almost as one can suspect the municipality to not care.
HOW MANY OF Stenersensamlingens 47 lost the pictures that were reported to the police is uncertain. Maybe it was just “the Story”. There is no doubt that the attempts to find again the art has been left off. Dagbladet has gained access to earlier correspondence between the Student welfare organisation in Oslo and municipality of Oslo. In a note described an attempt to get back a picture. A letter was sent to the student who had lived in the room the image was disappeared from. But: “He is not black. New letter sent”.
It is still gone.
STENERSENSAMLINGENS lost pictures are worth large sums of money. Only the works Dagbladet knows the artist and name have, according to Blomqvist, an estimated value of around million. In addition, among other things, the 24 graphic works by Munch, and probably more paintings of Erik Harry Johannessen. The cultural value there is none that can put. Munchmuseets director Svein Olav Henrichsen hit probably nail on the head when he comments on the handling of Stenersensamlingen and the missing images are as follows:
– It’s probably a symptom of a larger question about how we as a society maintain our art and cultural heritage, he said to Dagbladet on Thursday.
the Question is whether we at all have learned something when we now go into 2019.
So will they prevent a new Munch theft
