Munch Works To Be Shown, Then Restored

OSLO, Norway — Recovered masterpieces "The Scream" and "Madonna" by Norwegian painter Edvard Munch will be put on public display before time-consuming repairs to theft damage begin, museum officials said yesterday.

Police recovered the paintings — considered priceless — on August 31, just over two years after they were stolen by masked gunmen in a brazen daylight heist at the Oslo city-owned Munch Museum.

Both paintings were damaged as a result of the theft and require painstaking and time-consuming restoration. Art lovers have been eager to see the paintings before that process begins.

A photograph released by the museum yesterday shows clearly two less than 1-inch rips in the canvas of "Madonna." The damage reported by the museum to one corner of "The Scream" is less visible.

"The Scream," in Munch's emotionally charged style, was a major influence in the birth of the Expressionist movement and has become a modern icon of human anxiety. In the four versions of the painting, a waif-like figure is depicted apparently screaming or hearing a scream.