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Art Abuse: 11 Vandalized Works of Art
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Fountain: chipped
Fountain: chipped

Art Abuse: 11 Vandalized Works of Art

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Written by
Kathleen Kuiper
Kathleen Kuiper was Senior Editor, Arts & Culture, Encyclopédia Britannica until 2016. She also edited Merriam-Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature.
Kathleen Kuiper
Fact-checked by
Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
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History

There are times when something makes us so angry that we cannot prevent a visceral reaction, sometimes a physical one. It seems only human. But it seems a little peculiar when that something is a work of art. Following are some instances of art taking it on the chin, who did it, how, when, and what the vandal said when asked why.

Argenteuil Basin with a Single Sailboat

  • The time and date: Just before 11 AM on June 29, 2012
  • The assaulted work: Claude Monet’s Argenteuil Basin with a Single Sailboat (1874)
  • The scene of the crime: National Gallery of Ireland
  • The perpetrator: 49-year-old Andrew Shannon
  • The weapon: Shannon’s fist
  • The reason offered by the perp: Unstable angina. The perp claimed to have fallen against the painting in a fit of dizziness. However, the damage was done in an area above the level of Shannon’s eyes. What do you think?

Black on Maroon

  • The time and date: 3:25 PM on October 7, 2012
  • The assaulted work: Mark Rothko’s Black on Maroon (1958)
  • The scene of the crime: Tate Modern, London
  • The perpetrator: 26-year-old Vladimir Umanets
  • The weapon: Black ink applied by Umanets, who wrote his name and the words "a potential piece of yellowism"—the name of a would-be movement cofounded by the perp—on the painting
  • The reason offered by the perp: He said, “I am not a vandal. Art allows us to take what someone’s done and put a new message on it." Our question is “Art who?”

Fountain

  • The time and date: 1993 and January 3, 2006
  • The assaulted work: Both times, Marcel Duchamp’s ready-made Fountain (1964)
  • The scene of the crime: NĂźmes, France (1993), and Pompidou Centre, Paris (2006)
  • The perpetrator: Both times, Frenchman Pierre Pinoncelli
  • The weapon: Both times, mainly a hammer
  • The reason offered by the perp: During questioning the second time around, Pinoncelli told police that his hammer attack was a work of performance art and then said that it might have pleased the artists of Dada. Who knows?

The Toilet of Venus

  • The time and date: Just past 10:00 AM on March 10, 1914
  • The assaulted work: The so-called Rokeby Venus (The Toilet of Venus) by Diego VelĂĄzquez
  • The scene of the crime: The National Gallery, London
  • The perpetrator: Suffragette Mary Richardson
  • The weapon: A meat cleaver, with which she smashed the painting’s protective glass and then began slashing the canvas
  • The reason offered by the perp: After her arrest, Richardson said, “I have tried to destroy the picture of the most beautiful woman in mythological history as a protest against the Government destroying Mrs Pankhurst, who is the most beautiful character in modern history. Justice is an element of beauty as much as color and outline on canvas.” Many years later she confessed, “I didn’t like the way men visitors to the gallery gaped at it all day.” The truth comes out?

Work No. 227: The lights going on and off

  • The time and date: December 11, 2001
  • The assaulted work: Work No. 227: The lights going on and off by Martin Creed
  • The scene of the crime: Tate Britain, London
  • The perpetrator: Artist Jacqueline Crofton
  • The weapon: Two chicken eggs
  • The reason offered by the perp: Crofton acted on a dream she had of vandalizing Creed’s work after it was selected as the winner of the Turner Prize. She claimed to have “nothing against Creed, although I do not think his work can be considered as art. At worst, The lights going on and off is an electrical work. At best, it is philosophy. What I object to fiercely is that we’ve got this cartel who control the top echelons of the art world in this country and leave no access for painters and sculptors with real creative talent.” Sounds a tad like envy, no?

PietĂ 

  • The time and date: May 21, 1972
  • The assaulted work: PietĂ  by Michelangelo
  • The scene of the crime: St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City
  • The perpetrator: Unemployed geologist Laslo Toth
  • The weapon: A hammer, 12 blows
  • The reason offered by the perp: Toth offered no reason. He was certifiable enough to claim alternately that he was Jesus Christ and Michelangelo.

Militia Company of District II Under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq

  • The time and date: 1990 (also 1911 and 1975)
  • The assaulted work: Rembrandt van Rijn’s so-called Night Watch (Militia Company of District II Under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq)
  • The scene of the crime: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
  • The perpetrator: Escaped psychiatric patient P.G., as The New York Times reported
  • The weapon: Sprayed sulfuric acid
  • The reason offered by the perp: None. He was not coherent. Oddly enough, it is thought that this was the same man who nine years later used a kitchen knife to severely damage a Picasso (Nude in Front of a Garden) at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

Curtains

  • The time and date: August 7, 1993
  • The assaulted work: Curtains by Roy Lichtenstein
  • The scene of the crime: Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City (work was on loan from the St. Louis Art Museum)
  • The perpetrator: Temporary Whitney guard Reginald Walker
  • The weapon: Felt-tip pen
  • The reason offered by the perp: He was apparently overcome by love. He drew a heart and wrote the words “Reggie + Crystal I Love You Tushee Love Buns.”

Away from the Flock

  • The time and date: May 9, 1994
  • The assaulted work: Away from the Flock (an installation of a dead sheep floating in formaldehyde) by Damien Hirst
  • The scene of the crime: Serpentine Gallery, London
  • The perpetrator: Artist Mark Bridger
  • The weapon: Black ink, poured into the tank of formaldehyde
  • The reason offered by the perp: “I was in a carpe diem frame of mind; tomorrow may not be available.
To live is to do things, I was providing an interesting addendum to his work. In terms of conceptual art, the sheep had already made its statement. Art is there for creation of awareness and I added to whatever it was meant to say.” Whatever.

Composition in White, Black, and Red

  • The time and date: November 2, 1996
  • The scene of the crime: Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York City
  • The perpetrator: Artist Jubal Brown
  • The weapon: Projectile vomit consisting of blue gelatin and blue icing
  • The reason offered by the perp: This was the second instance of Brown deliberately ingesting foods of a particular color in order to vomit on particular works of art that he considered “oppressively trite and painfully banal.” (The first was Raoul Dufy’s Harbor at Le Havre, which “was just so boring it needed color.” That time he vomited red gelatin and red icing.) He said that he found the Mondrian work’s “lifelessness threatening.” Yeah. Maybe somebody needed some attention.

Bamiyan Buddhas

  • The time and date: Over the course of several days in March 2001
  • The assaulted work: Two monumental 6th-century Gandhara-style Buddhas
  • The scene of the crime: Bamiyan, Afghanistan
  • The perpetrator: Taliban, using various agents, at the command of Mullah Mohammad Omar
  • The weapon: Dynamite, tanks, and antiaircraft weapons
  • The reason offered by the perp: To rid the world of un-Muslim idolatry, human heritage be damned.
Kathleen Kuiper