Shortly after other group members were arrested for breaking the gold frame of the artist’s Sunflowers, Just Stop Oil activists covered two paintings by Vincent Van Gogh with soup, reports RTE.
Just Stop Oil said on X, the platform that was once known as Twitter, “Breaking: 2 Van Gogh paintings souped hours after phoebe and anna sentenced.”
“Three Just Stop Oil supporters have thrown soup over two of Van Gogh(‘s) paintings in the ‘Poets and Lovers’ exhibition at the National Gallery” .
The post featured a video of the activists vandalising the artwork before telling an angry crowd: “There are people in prison for demanding an end to new oil and gas, something which is now government policy after sustained, disruptive actions, countless headlines and the resulting political pressure. Future generations will regard these prisoners of conscience to be on the right side of history,” reports RTE.
The artworks have not been destroyed, and the National Gallery announced that the three protestors had been taken into custody.
A statement said: “At just after 2.30pm this afternoon, three people entered Room 6 of the National Gallery Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers exhibition. They appeared to throw a soup like substance over two works – Sunflowers (1888, National Gallery, London) and Sunflowers (1889, Philadelphia Museum of Art). Police were called and three people have been arrested. The paintings were removed from display and examined by a conservator and are unharmed. We are aiming to reopen the exhibition as soon as possible,” reports RTE.
Prior to attaching themselves to the wall beneath the picture, Phoebe Plummer, 23, and Anna Holland, 22, tossed Heinz tomato soup cans on sunflowers in October 2022 and were sentenced for criminal damage.
While the women were still affixed to the wall, museum staff examined the artwork and frame for any damage and expressed concern that the soup could have seeped beyond the protective glass, reports RTE.
Prosecutors claimed that the soup damaged the frame up to £10,000 (€12,000), yet the picture, which was shielded by a protective screen, remained undamaged and was rehung later that same day.
Holland received a 20-month jail term.
Per Judge Christopher Hehir, Plummer and Holland “came within the width of a pane of glass of irreparably damaging or even destroying” the artwork, which he described as “probably priceless in a literal sense”, reports RTE.
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