Supporters of the Stop the Oil movement poured soup on two Vincent van Gogh paintings at London’s National Gallery, hours after two activists faced jail sentences for attacking the same painting.
On Friday afternoon, three individuals entered the gallery, where an exhibition of Van Gogh’s collected works is on display, and poured Heinz soup over the paintings Sunflowers 1889 and Sunflowers 1888, The Guardian reported. They were detained on suspicion of criminal damage. In a video posted on X, activists can be heard telling the 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.
The Dutch painter’s work Sunflowers 1888 has come under attack from activists before. Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland poured soup on the painting in October 2022. Plummer received a 2-year prison sentence, while Holland received a 20-month prison sentence.
Ludi Simpson, 71, who also took part in yesterday’s protest, said: “We will be held accountable for our actions today, and we will face the full force of the law. When will the fossil fuel executives and the politicians they’ve bought be held accountable for the criminal damage that they are imposing on every living thing?”
The assault on the artwork came as Plummer and Hollande received their sentences. Judge Christopher Hehir in Southwark County Court said he took into account not only the damage to the frame, but also the possibility of even more damage to the painting if soup had seeped under the glass covering it. He told the defendants:
“You two simply had no right to do what you did to Sunflowers, and your arrogance in thinking otherwise deserves the strongest condemnation. The pair of you came within the thickness of a pane of glass of irreparably damaging or even destroying this priceless treasure, and that must be reflected in the sentences I pass.”
The incident marks the third time in recent years that a work of art at the National Gallery has been the subject of a protest. In July 2022, two activists glued themselves to a painting of John Constable’s The Hay Wain.
