“Radical Eco-Activists Throw Soup At Van Gogh Painting”. “Climate activists throw soup at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers again at London gallery”. “Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ targeted again with soup in UK after activists jailed.”.
These are a few of the headlines I awoke to today hours after two previous ‘Just Stop Oil’ protestors were criminally charged for damaging Vincent’s iconic and beloved Sunflowers back in October 2022. The criminals, named Phoebe Plummer, 23, and Anna Holland, 22, were sentenced to jail for two years and 20 months, respectively, after throwing cans of tomato soup at the painting, causing £10,000 in damage to the gold-colored frame, acquired by the National Gallery for £28,000.
The most recent outburst manifested as a “sign of defiance” for the prison sentences. Do they genuinely believe they can inflict damage on invaluable artwork without facing any repercussions? Are they genuinely so foolish? Their decision to target Van Gogh indicates their lack of awareness. Ultimately, Vincent was an advocate of nature and the environment.
If I felt no love for nature and my work, then I would be unhappy.
The latest ‘losers’ are named Phillipa Green, 24 from Cornwall, SW England; Ludi Simpson, a 71-year-old retired professor, apparently not lacking intelligence just plain ignorant; and Mary Patricia Somerville, a 77-year-old retired teacher from Bradford.
The two sunflowers targeted were Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers F454/JH1562 on permanent display at the National Gallery. This is the version that hung above Theo and Jo’s fireplace, which Johanna agonized over when confronted with selling the painting to the Courtauld Trustees in 1924.
It is also a version of Sunflowers that Vincent was so excited about when the time came for him to decorate Gauguin’s room at the Yellow House. In September 1888, Vincent wrote to Theo:
The room where you’ll stay then, or which will be Gauguin’s if Gauguin comes, will have a decoration of large yellow sunflowers on its white walls.
Opening the window in the morning, you see the greenery in the gardens, the rising sun and the entrance of the town.
But you’ll see these big paintings of bouquets of 12, 14 sunflowers stuffed into this tiny little boudoir with a pretty bed and everything else elegant. It won’t be commonplace.”. There were 14 sunflowers originally. A 15th was later added.
Vase with Twelve Sunflowers (F455/JH1668) is the other painting they attacked, which was bequeathed to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1963. This version is on loan for the exhibition Poets and Lovers. This painting, along with Amsterdam’s ‘Sunflowers in a Vase’ (F458/JJH1667), are known as repetitions and were originally painted by Vincent to be traded with works by Gauguin.
District Judge Minhas granted the three losers bail with the stipulation that they avoid entering the Greater London area within the M25, except for attending a pre-scheduled court date.
In June 2022, Just Stop Oil activists Emily Brocklebank, a 23-year-old psychology student from Leeds, Xavier Gonzales-Trimmer, 21, and Louis McKechnie, 21, inflicted £2,000 in damage to the 18th-century frame supporting Vincent’s Peach Trees in Blossom. These not-so-smart activists superglued themselves to the frame, later denying any intent to cause damage.
McKechnie, a mechanical engineering student who provided testimony at the court proceeding, stated, “In 1960, Martin Luther King was the most hated man in America. The civil rights movement still worked.” Firstly, Dr. King was not the most hated man in America; secondly, Dr. King advocated for nonviolent tactics to advance civil rights; and thirdly, how can this protestor possibly compare his actions to those of Dr. Martin Luther King? Please!
The civil rights movement of the 1960s was a crucial period in American history, marked by a concerted effort to dismantle systemic racial discrimination, and secure equal rights for African Americans.
This movement arose in reaction to the widespread inequalities and segregation deeply rooted in society, especially in the Southern states. Activists utilized several techniques, including nonviolent demonstrations, judicial appeals, and community mobilization, to promote civil liberties and challenge the status quo.
In a 1969 Gallup poll, when the black community was asked if racial equality could be achieved with nonviolent means, 63% voted yes. Years prior, we had seen Brown v. Board of Education ruling racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. 1955, we remember the iconic Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott. In 1960, we saw The Greensboro Four and the Sit-In Movement, where a group of four African American students sat at the whites only lunch counter in Woolworths. Their peaceful protest spread to other larger cities within America. In 1961, Freedom Rides turned to violence by opposing parties. The famous March on Washington and Birmingham demonstrations occurred in 1963, helping to implement the Civil Rights Act a year later, but 1965 saw the horrendous onslaught by state troopers at the Selma to Montgomery March.
McKechnie, a white priviged English boy, was sentenced to three weeks of incarceration. The court imposed a 21-day sentence on Brocklebank, postponing the punishment for six months. She was subjected to a six-week electronically monitored curfew. The court dismissed charges against 21-year-old Xavier Gonzales-Trimmer for “distracting the guards,” but fined him for failing to attend the original court session.
This is not the first time McKechnie has been arrested for breaking the law; his sentencing should have been harsher.
Vincent painted La Crau with Peach Trees in Blossom during hospitalization in Arles.
I’m well these days, apart from a certain vague background sadness that’s hard to define — but anyway — I’ve gained physical powers rather than lose them, and I’m working. Just now I have on the easel an orchard of peach trees beside a road with the Alpilles in the background.
Vincent to Theo, April 1889
Vincent had also written to his friend and fellow artist Paul Signac in which he drew a sketch of the painting.
Anna Boch, the Belgian artist and sister of Eugene Boch, purchased the painting in 1891 for 350 Francs. Anna also purchased The Red Vineyard in March 1890. Samuel Courtauld later paid £9,000 for it, and it is now a prominent feature of the Courtauld Gallery’s collection.
In a 2022 interview with Rachael Venables of LBC Radio, McKechnie said: “The climate crisis is going to make the future very, very difficult for my generation. People will die, there’ll be food shortages, there’ll be floods, there’ll be tornadoes, there’ll be absolute catastrophes all over the world. We’re talking a billion refugees by 2050, and I don’t want to see my generation have to go through that.”
As I conclude this brief post, having participated in numerous PEACEFUL protests in and around London during the 1980s and 1990s, and having lived through several devastating hurricanes in Florida, I sincerely hope that every member of Just Stop Oil adheres to a vegan lifestyle.
Other paintings damaged include:
- Giampietrino – The Last Supper
- John Constable – The Hay Wain
- J.M.W. Turner – Thomson’s Aeolian Harp
- Diego Velazquez – The Rokeby Venus
Ah, while I was ill, damp, melting snow was falling, I got up in the night to look at the landscape – never, never has nature appeared so touching and so sensitive to me.
Vincent to Theo in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence - Dec 1889