Watch: Russian thief poses as gallery worker to steal $1.5m artwork

A man has been caught on CCTV cameras blatantly stealing an artwork from a Moscow art gallery.

The man was taped walking up to an artwork and calmly taking it off the wall, before carrying it out the door of the Tretyakov gallery in Russia's capital while gallery crowds watched.

The artwork, which is worth £760,000 (NZ$1.46 million) and entitled Ai Petri.Crimea, depicts a mountain in the Crimean Peninsula.

Russian police caught the thief, who directed them straight to the painting, wrapped in a coat at a building site.

However in an odd twist, the man claimed he doesn't remember committing the crime or anything else about the day it happened.

Newshub.