National Gallery

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London's National Gallery Takes Steps to Protect Art

Most liquids are prohibited after attacks, and visitors must go through metal detectors

(Newser) - The National Gallery in London is taking steps to protect its collection after a series of attacks by climate activists on its artworks. Two climate activists were sentenced last month for tossing tomato soup on the museum's "Sunflowers," by Vincent van Gogh. "The collection we hold...

Van Gogh Painting Gets a Soup Bath by Climate Activists
They Dumped Soup on a
Van Gogh. Now, Jail Time
UPDATED
Sep 28, 2024 7:00 AM CDT

They Dumped Soup on a Van Gogh. Now, Jail Time

Sunflowers wasn't harmed, but Just Stop Oil protesters will be spending some time behind bars

(Newser) - Two climate activists from the Just Stop Oil group will see jail time after dumping tomato soup on a Van Gogh painting in London's National Gallery. Citing PA Media, CNN reports that Phoebe Plummer, 23, and Anna Holland, 22, received sentences Friday of two years and 20 months, respectively,...

Gallery Donor Gets Last Word, Two Years After Death

Lord John Sainsbury's hidden note objecting to architectural design is found

(Newser) - A strange story has emerged out of London's National Gallery involving a billionaire donor and his posthumous objections to the design of a wing he funded. The billionaire is Lord John Sainsbury, a grocery store magnate who gave tens of millions of dollars to the museum to build what...

White House, Met Hop Aboard Google Art Project

Online gallery now has works from 151 museums in 40 countries

(Newser) - The White House's art collection, all 139 pieces, is being added to the Google Art Project, as part of a major expansion of Google's online art initiative, reports CBS News . Other collections being added include the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Gallery in London,...

Long-Lost Leonardo Painting Resurfaces

First major da Vinci discovery in a century

(Newser) - For the first time in a century, a major “new” Leonardo da Vinci piece has emerged. This time, it’s a painting called “Salvatore Mundi,” discovered in a private American collection and confirmed as the master’s work. It’s a long-missing painting that once belonged to...

Gauguin Attacker: Painting Is 'Very Homosexual'

'Evil' painting unharmed after Susan Burns' gallery attack

(Newser) - The woman who attacked a Paul Gauguin painting in Washington's National Gallery believed the painting of two topless Tahitian women was both "evil" and "homosexual," according to a criminal complaint obtained by The Smoking Gun . "I feel that Gauguin is evil. He has nudity and is...

Woman Attacks Gauguin at National Gallery

'This is evil,' shouts visitor who pounds painting with her fists

(Newser) - A Paul Gauguin painting of two topless Tahitian women was attacked on Friday by an angry National Gallery visitor who pounded on the artwork, shouting: "This is evil!" She “was really pounding it with her fists,” a witness told the Washington Post . “It was like...

Britain's Art Collection Threatened by ... Road Salt

Record snowfall poses artistic danger

(Newser) - Britain's National Gallery is taking swift action against a corrosive force that threatens to damage masterworks by some of the world's greatest painters—road salt. With London blanketed with unusually heavy snowfall, authorities have spread tons of salt to clear the roads. But that salt, tracked in on the shoes...

Museum Pioneer Thomas Hoving Dead at 78

He transformed role of curator while at the Met

(Newser) - Thomas Hoving, who helped transform the role of museum curator in his decade at the helm of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, died today. He was 78 and suffered from cancer. "I'm a goner,” he had told author Michael Gross , who broke the news on...

UK Art Honcho: We Need More Fakes

Could be due to planned imitation exhibition, of course

(Newser) - The head of London’s National Gallery wishes “we had more fakes,” he tells Reuters. “It’s worth having some in a collection. Not having them on display for what they pretend to be, but for what they are,” Nicholas Penny explains ahead of a 2010...

Beloved Brit Painting Once Owned by Hitler

Venus image now in National Gallery also hung in his apartment

(Newser) - A nude painting of Venus on display in London's National Gallery for 45 years—one of the gallery's most popular works—turns out to have been once owned by Adolf Hitler. The whimsical Cupid Complaining to Venus, by German master Lucas Cranach, was given to Hitler by a prominent Nazi...

Fake-speare: Scholar Says Bard Portrait Is a Phony

400-year-old painting was swapped, she says

(Newser) - A famous portrait of Shakespeare owned by the Royal Shakespeare Company is a fake—a 19th-century imitation that replaced the older original sometime in the past decade, a German scholar claimed yesterday. “Where is the priceless 400-year-old original 'Flower' portrait?” she asks, saying that the painting appears different this...

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