The hunt for "Hins Anders": The crime reporter who tracks down Zorn's stolen masterpiece

A hole in the heart of Swedish cultural heritage.

This is how crime reporter Karl Enn describes the theft of "Hins Anders".

Anders Zorn's masterpiece from 1904 was kicked out of the Thielska gallery on a June night just over 26 years ago.

The painting of the downcast fiddler has been missing ever since.

But now the 46-year-old writer Karl Enn claims that he has identified the men who committed the theft and also healers interested in returning the work in exchange for money.

- That "Hins Anders" exists and that there are people who can produce it - I am completely convinced of that, says Karl Enn to DN.

In the new book "The hunt for Zorn", Karl Enn singles out individuals with connections to a well-known heavy criminal network based on the outskirts of Stockholm.

The actual break-in at the Thielska gallery on June 20, 2000 is time-barred. But hoarding – storing, moving or selling the goods – can be persistent, a crime that continues over time. Those responsible could be held accountable even today.

Enn describes exchanges - phone calls and physical meetings - with people who claim to be able to repay "Hins Anders" for a sum that fluctuates between SEK 500,000 and 10 percent of the painting's market value.

According to Enn, the painting is worth around 30 million - he calls it and the five other works stolen from the Thielska gallery Sweden's biggest unsolved art coup. Of the paintings that were stolen in Sweden and are still missing, "Hins-Anders" is considered the most expensive.

In addition to "Hins Anders" and three additional works by Zorn ("In the studio", "Dreams", "Under the pine"), a painting by Bruno Liljefors ("Horror") and one by Olof Sager-Nelson ("Portrait of Mme Huot's daughter-in-law") were stolen.

When DN spends an afternoon with Karl Enn at the Thielska gallery in mid-September, he gives a guarded and slightly hazy impression. He complains about rampages. When we walk back to the city, he leans towards the end of the walk against a lamp post on Strandvägen, as if he was about to pass out in the somewhat stuffy capital.

Dehydration, he explains afterwards in an apologetic text message. But the slightly feverish state during the interview reflects the self-immolating dig reporter persona he cultivates in "The Hunt for Zorn".

Alongside journalism, Enn is involved in a family business in Örebro County, a subcontractor to Bergslagen's steel industry. The child of an Estonian war refugee, he grew up surrounded by hunting art of the kind Ernest Thiel collected. In the home were paintings of foxes and seabirds that the father bought directly from Bruno Liljefors' son Lindorm.

Sometimes the line between great art and reality becomes blurred. At one point, the author glimpses Hins-Ander's figure in a police photo of a heavy criminal he singles out as a suspect.

It can be difficult for an outsider to assess the reliability of Enn's information. Together with retired investigators, former prosecutors and art connoisseurs, the gallery of people in "The Hunt for Zorn" consists of criminally charged people. Are Enn's informants playing hide and seek with the author?

It cannot be ruled out, says Lars Korsell, docent in criminology at the Crime Prevention Council, who wrote the book "Crime location KB. The hunt for stolen books". Korsell has not read "The Hunt for Zorn", only read the advance information from the publisher.

- As an inherently ignorant reader, I get the impression of a kind of robber story, it looks very spectacular, he says.

Enn fights back.

- All the facts from official documents, former police officers and people in the underworld point to the same grouping, with personal connections between suspected thieves and healers.

How can you be so sure where "Hins Anders" is when you haven't seen the painting with your own eyes?

- When I was offered to sell "Hins Anders" I was able to confirm a number of facts that made me certain that the painting exists and who had access to it. I couldn't go any further than that without potentially committing a crime. I reached a journalistic outer limit in the pursuit of the painting.

Others, with whom Karl Enn was in close contact during the course of the work on the book, have gained a deeper trust in the author, in his stubbornness and pathos. This includes Nina Öhman, curator at the Thielska gallery from 1997 to 2011.

Stolen art has sometimes been recovered precisely through settlements with dubious actors who are in contact with the underworld, so-called crying thieves.

Tommy Lindström was head of the National Criminal Police from 1981 to 1993. Lindström's methods for returning stolen art to museums and galleries are strongly questioned. He has paid informants and had purchases arranged where the healer is caught red-handed.

Lindström, 81, sounds immediately mobilized when DN reaches him over the phone.

- Is it "Hins Anders" we are talking about?

Yes.

- Is there an offer?

Karl Enn claims to have received bids in the size range of SEK 500,000 to SEK 3 million.

- I think Thielska should grab it, says Lindström. It might be worth it. But you should never start from the market value when you start negotiating, but from a fixed amount. It could be SEK 100,000 in this case.

"Hins Anders" is part of the digital museum that Interpol and Unesco have set up about lost cultural objects of international importance. Sweden has six works on the list. The painting has graced a Swedish postage stamp. "It is extremely desirable," says Thielska gallery's former curator Nina Öhman to Karl Enn.

Öhman slept in the Thielska gallery's representation floor the night the art was stolen.

In "The Hunt for Zorn", Öhman claims that the Thielska gallery's board agreed to announce a finder's reward shortly after the theft.

"I talked to other museum directors who had been through the same thing, and the board of Thielska came to the conclusion that we should try with a symbolic sum of a few hundred thousand kroner," says Öhman in the book.

Should the Thielska gallery now announce a bounty again, to tempt the healers that Karl Enn claims to have identified?

- Nobody wants that, says Nina Öhman to DN. But if there is someone credible among the criminals, you can imagine an envelope in exchange for all these paintings...

- "Hins Anders" is endlessly famous. And looking at the Zorn prices... I saw a lousy Zorn in an ad today from one of the million dollar auction houses. "Hins Anders" is a fine painting.

Olle Granath was director of the Modern Museum 1980–1989 and superintendent at the National Museum 1989–2001.

In his memoir "In the world of art. From 4 Americans to Midvinterblot" from 2024, Granath describes how he returns stolen works to the Thielska gallery. This was during Ulf Linde's time as superintendent, i.e. before the coup in 2000.

A healer calls. Granath and the healer settle for a seat. Then the police intervene and confiscate both healers and works of art. The plastic bag that would hold the ransom never had to be handed over.

In 1993 art worth half a billion was stolen from the Modern Museum in Stockholm.

As curator at the nearby National Museum, Granath is approached by the head of security for Moderna. He asks if Granath would consider paying for information that restores the art. Granath estimates that it is worth 200,000 kroner, which leads to the head of security and Tommy Lindström returning works from an isolated house in the Gothenburg area.

I ask Lindström how common it is for art museums to pay for stolen paintings.

- It happens. I know that.

Through you?

- No, I arrange make-believe purchases that then turn into strikes. The only money that is then paid out is a consultant's fee to the informant.

This is precisely what Lindström suggests that the Thielska gallery should now do with the help of Karl Enn's information in the book: arrange a sham purchase that leads to an arrest.

Olle Granath – Lindström's old client – ​​is more skeptical.

- In principle, you should not pay ransoms or wages, because then you enter a carousel that never stops, says Granath. I inherently deviated from that principle, but in my case we put 200,000 kroner against art valued at hundreds of millions.

It is nothing new, says Olle Granath, that informants claim to be sitting on "Hins Anders".

- I met a policeman who claimed to know that "Hins Anders" was in an apartment on Södermalm, he was going to gain access to that apartment and burst the bubble. But I never heard from him again.

This summer, Carl-Johan Olsson took over as Thielska gallery's new chairman of the board. On weekdays, he is the curator at the National Museum. In a first conversation with DN, Olsson suggests that a hit salary is not completely out of the question.

- Nothing has been decided. We will take it up in the board, of course. We would love to have the paintings back. (Founder Ernest) Thiel bought "Hins Anders" directly from Zorn. It is one of his finest character portraits.

How do you generally feel about finder's fees for stolen art?

- I looked around a bit... The Munch Museum announced a reward when they encountered a theft about 20 years ago. But Thielska today is under quite severe financial pressure.

After conferring with the board at the Thielska gallery, Olsson calls back and says that it is "out of the question" with a hit salary.

Olsson says he welcomes the attention that Karl Enn's book can trigger and wants to arrange a book talk with the author inside Thielska. But Olsson says at the same time that the issue is sensitive at the gallery. Some in the business suffer from "inherited trauma" after the theft 26 years ago, he says. It is not unusual for art institutions to shy away from highlighting thefts. There is a fear of inhibiting lenders of precious art. However, Carl-Johan Olsson assures that security at the Thielska gallery is far more rigorous today compared to the year 2000.

In addition to identifying alleged burglars and possible healers, Karl Enn reveals that the entire police investigation into the coup against the Thielska gallery has been lost in the Stockholm police archives.

It is "lost", the author learns. Disappeared without a trace.

Enn has never encountered anything like it in his 15-year career as a crime reporter.

Hardly either Tommy Lindström.

- It does not occur, he says. All investigations are recorded. That's my picture from back in the day. Now it will be difficult to recapitulate what was said in the interrogation and what emerged in the tips.

Kenneth Mandergrehn, retired police officer specializing in cultural heritage crimes, reacts very strongly when he hears from DN that the investigation would be over.

- My God, that sounds completely unreasonable. After all, this is one of the larger police investigations in terms of art coups, comparable to the Modern Museum and the National Museum. It cannot have been neglected. It must be in the catacombs.

When DN searches for the Stockholm police, the archive confirms that the investigation is gone.

"Investigations were made but were unfortunately fruitless," writes archive manager Emil Söderström in an email to DN.

Could it be appropriate to start looking again now that "The Hunt for Zorn" is breathing life into the coup?

"At the moment, we have done what we can," writes the archive administrator to DN.

Until Enn, the police refuse to release the information about who last retrieved and took part in the investigation in the archive.

If it happens within the police, it must be some kind of insider job

- This appears to be a unique situation, says Lars Korsell, associate professor of criminology. With the order that generally prevails in the police, it appears almost unthinkable that an investigation would disappear. It can happen in archives that people with, for example, Nazi connections have tampered with documents. But if it happens within the police, it must be some kind of insider job.

Karl Enn first harbored similar suspicions when he began to look into the coup. It was during a Tinder date (with a woman "who has her given place in the cultural elite") that Enn was told that not everything was right with the investigation. But Enn finds no clues that strengthen the theory that the police would be involved in the break-in or the heist or have any interests in sabotaging the investigation.

The missing police investigation adds further mystery to an institution that has long had a unique position in Stockholm.

The white Art Nouveau palace far out on Djurgården rests in an aura of sublimity.

The couple Ulf Linde and Nina Öhman ruled and lived at the Thielska gallery from 1977 to 2011.

The 34-year era ended in a power struggle with parts of the board. Öhman and Linde wanted to stay in the 250 square meter representative floor (monthly rent: SEK 3,000) under a new manager.

Forces on the board wanted to increase the gallery's accessibility to the public and feared that the retired curators in the attic would be a drag. In an interview with Svenska Dagbladet, Ulf Linde dismissed those eager for change in the board as "a collection of neoliberal desk zeroes".

Finally, the couple capitulated. The widow Öhman lives today in a terraced house on Lidingö. When Karl Enn first approaches her, she is hostile, in the slightly feudal manner that seemed to characterize Thielska during her and her husband's time.

Karl Enn asks her to tell how it felt when she was woken up by the police on June 20, 2000 and "Hins Anders" is gone.

Öhman answers as if she had been personally robbed:

"It's one of the absolute stupidest things a journalist can ask a victim - which I am in some ways. It's just grotesque," she tells Enn. "It goes without saying that it's something brutal, unforgivable and terrifying. So stop asking about it."

But then Öhman and Enn are united during nicotine-fuelled interview sessions on Lidingö.

- I have confidence in him, says Nina Öhman to DN about Karl Enn. At first I was skeptical. But I'm impressed. Not least of her moral approach to the theft of art in the public domain.

Karl Enn describes in "The Hunt for Zorn" how he ends up in an "administrative trance" during research. When, after months of diligent detective work, he finally thinks he sees a solution to the coup, he writes colorfully:

"... lead white, amber, cinnabar and ivory black. Zorn's colors complement each other, the picture suddenly becomes clear. I see it in front of me. Now I know with whom Hins Anders rests".