Three people have been charged with criminal damage after soup was thrown at two Van Gogh paintings at London’s National Gallery on Friday.
On Friday, the Just Stop Oil activists poured tomato soup on two of Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers, part of the Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers exhibition at the National Gallery. They were soon detained.
The Metropolitan Police reported Stephen Simpson, 61, of Bradford, West Yorkshire, Phillipa Green, 24, of Penryn, Cornwall, and Mary Somerville, 77, of Bradford, West Yorkshire, will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Monday.
The protest occurred almost exactly an hour after the sentencing of two other activists. Phoebe Plummer, 23, and Anna Holland, 22, were jailed on Friday after causing around £10,000 worth of damage to a gilded picture frame when they attacked it at the National Gallery in London in October 2022.
In a Friday online statement, Just Stop Oil said that its supporters took part in the protest as “a sign of defiance after the original soup throwers, Plummer and Holland were imprisoned for up to two years at Southwark Crown Court today.”
The National Gallery said in a statement the demonstrators “appeared to throw a soup-like substance over two works… police were called and three people have been arrested. The paintings were removed from display and examined by a conservator. The paintings are unharmed. We are aiming to reopen the exhibition as soon as possible.”
