Van Gogh paintings were destroyed at a London gallery after two activists were convicted in a similar attack

This photo provided by Just Stop Oil shows two protesters throwing canned soup at Vincent Van Gogh’s famous 1888 work “Sunflowers” at the National Gallery in London on October 14, 2022. | Photo credit: AP

Two paintings by Dutch master Vincent van Gogh at London’s National Gallery were vandalized on Friday (September 27, 2024) when a group of climate activists appeared to splash tomato soup on them, shortly after two other activists were convicted of a similar attack two years ago.

The paintings from Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” ​​series, which the artist painted in Arles, southern France, were not damaged thanks to protective glass covers. The gallery identified the two as its own Sunflowers (1888) and Sunflowers (1889), on loan from the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

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“The three activists from the environmental group Just Stop Oil involved in the attack were arrested while the paintings were removed, examined and then returned to their location. The exhibition reopened later on Friday,” the gallery said.

The group posted a video of the attack on social media, showing three people pouring soup over the paintings. The action apparently took place in protest against the conviction of two other activists from the group, Phoebe Plummer (23) and Anna Holland (22), on Friday.

Plummer was sentenced to two years in prison, while Holland received a 20-month sentence for his attack on a “Sunflower” painting in October 2022. The two women threw cans of tomato soup at the artwork, then knelt in front of it and taped their hands to the wall below. They were found guilty by a jury in July of criminal damage.

In both attacks – in 2022 and on Friday – activists wore T-shirts supporting Just Stop Oil. The group is urging the British government to stop new oil and gas projects and staging high-profile stunts, including at major sporting events and on Britain’s transport network.

In Friday’s video, one of the unnamed activists said that future generations will view them as “prisoners of conscience” who were “on the right side of history.”

The 2022 attack caused £10,000 ($13,000) worth of damage to the gold frame of Van Gogh’s painting. At the time, museum staff feared that the soup might have leaked through and caused immeasurable damage to the painting.

In sentencing on Friday, Judge Christopher Hehir said the artwork could have been “severely damaged or even destroyed”.

Mr Hehir was also a judge in the case against Roger Hallam, the co-founder of Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion, another environmental campaign group, and had sentenced him to five years in prison.

On Friday, he took aim at Plummer. “You clearly believe that your beliefs give you the right to commit crimes when you feel like it,” he said. “You don’t.”

Plummer, who represented herself and pleaded guilty, said at the hearing that she would accept any verdict “with a smile.”

“Today is not just about myself or my co-defendants, but about the foundations of democracy itself,” she said.

Five days after her guilty verdict in July, Plummer was arrested for spraying paint on departure boards at Heathrow Airport.

Lawyer Raj Chada, defending Holland, said the two women checked that the “sunflowers” were protected by a glass cover before throwing away the soup.