One morning in October 2022, Anna Holland and Phoebe Plummer, two young climate activists, walked into room 43 of the National Gallery in London, opened two tins of Heinz tomato soup and then threw the sloppy orange contents at Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers.”
The pair then glued themselves to the wall beneath the painting’s frame, before Plummer shouted, “What is worth more, art or life?”
On Friday, a British judge sentenced the pair, both members of the Just Stop Oil protest group, to lengthy prison terms for the protest, which he said was “criminally idiotic” and could have caused “irreversible damage” to the masterpiece.
Judge Christopher Hehir, sentenced Plummer, 23, to two years in prison for damaging the painting’s frame. Holland, 22, received 20 months in jail for the same offense. The court had found the pair guilty of the offenses in July.
During the sentencing hearing, Judge Hehir said that acidic soup had a “corrosive effect” on the painting’s 17th-century wood frame and had lowered the frame’s value by an estimated 10,000 pounds, or about $13,000. The painting — one of a series that van Gogh made between 1888 and 1889 — is one of the National Gallery’s most treasured paintings and currently a centerpiece of the museum’s 200th anniversary exhibition, “Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers.”
The judge said the duo’s action came close to damaging the masterpiece — within “the thickness of a pane of glass.” He added that “stupidity like this” could lead museums to withdraw cultural treasures from public view, or force them to introduce onerous security measures that would deter visitors.
During the hearing, Plummer, who uses they/them pronouns, read a lengthy speech in which they said that protest was a vital tool for raising awareness of climate change. Judge Hehir interrupted repeatedly: “I’ve heard it before,” he said at one point. After Plummer said they were “a political prisoner,” Judge Hehir interrupted to say, “We don’t have political prisoners in this country.”
Raj Chada, a lawyer representing Holland, told the court that the defendants had not intended to damage the painting and knew the museum had covered it with glass to protect it. Judge Hehir dismissed that argument saying the pair had blithely ignored the risks to Van Gogh’s painting.
A National Gallery spokeswoman declined to comment.
The jail terms are the heaviest penalties handed down by a British court over climate protests in museums, a trend that began in 2022 when activists started gluing themselves to the frames of famous paintings.
A protester who glued himself to the frame of another van Gogh work, “Peach Trees in Blossom,” at the Courtauld Gallery, was sentenced to a prison term of three weeks in 2022, but most activists have avoided jail time. Five Just Stop Oil members who stuck themselves to the frame of a copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” and spray-painted the phrase, “No new oil,” on a wall at the Royal Academy were each fined £486, about $650.
During the hearing, Plummer said they expected a jail term and would accept the judgment “with a smile.” As a member of the court staff led the pair away to start their sentences, the pair hugged and blew kisses at supporters.
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