The National Gallery is home to Van Gogh’s still life Sunflowers. It’s an oil on canvas that, according to the Times, has been valued at £75 million. It is a cherished work of modern European art and one of the most important to come from the post-impressionist movement. This morning, two activists from Just Stop Oil went into Room 43 of the National Gallery and drenched Sunflowers in Heinz cream of tomato soup, before glueing themselves to the wall.
One of the young women said:
Is art worth more than life? More than food? More than justice? The cost of living crisis is driven by fossil fuels. Everyday life has become unaffordable for millions of cold, hungry families. They can’t even afford to heat a tin of soup. Meanwhile, crops are failing and people are dying in supercharged monsoons, massive wildfires and endless droughts caused by climate breakdown. We can’t afford new oil and gas.
We have invited this kind of behaviour by indulging it
The National Gallery says the painting has not been damaged – high-value works tend to have a plastic film placed over them before going on public display – but there has been ‘some minor damage to the frame’.
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