Just Stop Oil protesters jailed for throwing soup over Van Gogh's Sunflowers painting
27 September 2024, 13:40 | Updated: 27 September 2024, 15:16
Two Just Stop oil activists have been jailed after throwing soup over a Vincent van Gogh painting.
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Phoebe Plummer, 23, and Anna Holland, 22, have been jailed at Southwark Crown Court for two years and 20 months respectively after being convicted of criminal damage when they threw tomato soup over the the legendary Sunflowers painting.
Judge Christopher Hehir branded the pair "idiotic" as he sentenced them.
In the shocking footage of the scene, staff at London's National Gallery rushed to remove the painting, which was not damaged in the incident.
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The painting's 17th-century Italian frame was damaged, however, with repairs costing £10,000.
“The frame was permanently damaged by your idiotic and criminal actions,” he said.
“The painting itself, Sunflowers, could have been seriously damaged or even destroyed. Your stance at trial was a blithe dismissal of the risk involved in what you did.”
He added: "(Van Gogh's work) belongs to the entire world and his work is part of humanity’s shared cultural treasures.
“You simply had no right to do what you did to Sunflowers, and your arrogance in thinking otherwise deserves the strictest condemnation.”
Plummer, representing herself, told the hearing: "My choice today is to accept whatever sentence I receive with a smile.
"It is not just myself being sentenced today, or my co-defendants, but the foundations of democracy itself." Judge Hehir said it was "offensive" for Plummer to portray herself as a political prisoner "when you think of the people in dungeons around the world.
"We don't have political prisoners in this country," he added.
The pair were heard to have initially dressed as normal visitors and waited for a space to appear around Van Gogh’s painting.
They then removed their jackets to reveal Just Stop Oil-branded T-shirts, and emptied two tins of soup on the artwork.
The two subsequently glued their hands to the walls next to the painting.
Plummer was heard to have said in front of the painting: "What is worth more, art or life? Is it worth more than food? Worth more than justice?
"Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting, or the protection of our planet and people? The cost-of-living crisis is part of the cost-of-oil crisis."
The protesters were later seen being bundled into a police van at the back entrance of the gallery.
Visitors, meanwhile, were escorted out by security, who then shut the doors to the room where the painting hangs.
Painted in Arles in the south of France in August 1888, van Gogh's painting shows fifteen sunflowers standing in a yellow pot against a yellow background.
The priceless work was the second from the National Gallery to be selected as a target for protest action by Just Stop Oil in 2022, with two supporters glueing themselves to John Constable's The Hay Wain in July of that year.
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