2024-09-27 16:13:00
Activists from Just Stop Oil doused two paintings of Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” at the National Gallery in London on Friday with soup. The images have been removed and are not damaged.
Activists from Just Stop Oil splashed soup on two paintings of Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” at the National Gallery in London on Friday, shortly after the sentencing of two activists to prison for similar actions, the environmental group said today Friday
“The pictures have been removed, they were checked by a conservator, and there is no damage,” the museum said in a press release sent to AFP.
Two activists sentenced to prison
This action follows the sentencing this Friday of two activists from the group Just Stop Oil to prison for eating tomato soup on Van Gogh’s masterpiece, “Sunflowers”, at the National Gallery in London in October 2022.
Phoebe Plummer, 23, was sentenced to two years in prison and Anna Holland, 22, received a 20-month sentence. Both of them performed this extraordinary act which slightly damaged the frame surrounding the 1888 work, which was protected by glass.
For its part, the NGO Greenpeace immediately objected to “an unfair term for an exhibition which causes little damage to the painting frame and no canvas itself”.
“This is another unfair step in the government’s latest crackdown on peaceful protests,” said Will McCallum, executive director of Greenpeace UK.
Four other activists are involved
At the time, Just Stop Oil called for an immediate halt to any new oil or gas projects in the UK, a move the new Labor government has taken against.
In July, four activists from the same organization, who organized a road blockade, were sentenced to four years in prison by British courts. The founder, Roger Hallam, was sentenced to five years for having prepared this action.
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