In London, new soup throws from environmental activists on two paintings of Van Gogh's “Sunflowers”

Just after the sentencing of two activists to prison, Just Stop Oil activists persisted and signed on Friday, September 27. Three activists again doused two paintings of the Sunflowers by Van Gogh at the National Gallery in London.

Shortly after 2:30 p.m. (local time, 3:30 p.m. in Paris), they opened containers of soup and threw it on two of the Sunflowers of Van Gogh – one from 1888, already targeted at the National Gallery the previous time, and the other from 1889, on loan from the Philadelphia Museum of Art –, before revealing their t-shirts “Just Stop Oil”we can see in a video posted on social networks.

These works, immediately examined by a curator, are not “damaged”said the National Gallery in a press release sent to Agence France-Presse (AFP), adding that three people had been arrested by the police.

This action was organized in “sign of defiance” after the sentencing of Phoebe Plummer, 23, and Anna Holland, 22, to two years and twenty months in prison by British justice on Friday morning, explains Just Stop Oil, which calls for an end to the exploitation of fossil fuels in by 2030.

On October 14, 2022, these two activists splashed soup on the board Sunflowers of 1888 before putting his hands on the museum wall, a spectacular and highly publicized action to demand an immediate halt to any new oil or gas projects in the United Kingdom. She had only very slightly damaged the frame surrounding the 1888 work, protected by glass.

“twenty-five activists in prison”

“People are imprisoned for demanding that oil and gas projects be stopped (…) Future generations will recognize that these prisoners of conscience were on the right side of history”said activist Phil Green, 24, after throwing the soup on these works on Friday. Since mid-September, the National Gallery has been organizing an exhibition dedicated to the famous Dutch painter, “Van Gogh. Poets and Lovers,” which closed after the action.

The two activists, sentenced Friday by Southwark court in London, should “serve at least half of their sentence in detention”underlined Just Stop Oil, whose “twenty-five sympathizers are currently in prison”.

“You had no right to do what you did to Sunflowers »said Judge Christopher Hehir on Friday, who sentenced Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland for “criminal damage”. “The soup could have seeped through the glass” and damage, “even destroy”the famous painting exhibited in the Trafalgar Square gallery, “a cultural treasure”he added during the hearing.

“Disproportionate punishment”

Shortly before the announcement of her sentence, Anna Holland declared that she did not expect “justice from a broken system, which has been corrupted by its dependence on fossil fuels”. “Prison sentences, whatever their length, will not deter us”she added. “With these militant actions, I chose to peacefully disrupt an unjust, dishonest and murderous system”said Phoebe Plummer.

The NGO Greenpeace denounced a “disproportionate punishment for a demonstration which caused minor damage to the frame of the painting and none to the canvas itself”. “This is another sinister step in the repression of peaceful protests” started by the previous Conservative government, said Will McCallum, co-executive director of Greenpeace UK.

In July, several British NGOs and activists denounced a decline in the freedom to demonstrate after the heavy prison sentences imposed on five members of Just Stop Oil for organizing the blockade of an English motorway. Four of them were sentenced to four years in prison by the same judge, Christopher Hehir, and the founder of the organization, Roger Hallam, was sentenced to five years for having prepared this action.