Museumgoers have spoken of their fury after the National Gallery was forced to impose a ban on liquids following a string of activist attacks.
The new rules were introduced on Friday after protests in which John Constable’s The Hay Wain, Diego Velazquez’s Rokeby Venus and Van Gogh’s Sunflowers were targeted by Just Stop Oil activists.
Pro-Palestinian activists from the group Youth Demand also pasted over Pablo Picasso’s Motherhood in October in protest at the sale of arms to Israel.
Tougher guidelines now state that ‘no liquids can be brought into the National Gallery, with the exception of baby formula, expressed milk and prescription medicines’.
However Just Stop Oil managed to gain access to the Gallery and unfurl a banner to demand the release of two activists who were imprisoned for throwing soup at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting in 2022.
The Telegraph reported that some people have had to queue for over an hour to get in, with those unaware of the rules having to empty their water bottles outside.
One visitor, Nina, told The Telegraph the queues were ‘worse than airport’ security, stating ‘I’m a member but I may not be after this’.
Tougher guidelines now state that ‘no liquids can be brought into the National Gallery, with the exception of baby formula, expressed milk and prescription medicines’
In October 2022, Phoebe Plummer, 23, (left) and fellow activist Anna Holland, 22, (right) flung two tins of Heinz soup at Sunflowers at London’s National Gallery
The protesters threw tins of Heinz tomato soup over Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers at the National Gallery on October 14, 2022
Writing in the Evening Standard on Saturday, Melanie McDonagh said a trip to the National Gallery could begin to feel like a journey through Heathrow.
She said she experienced a ‘taster’ of what is to come when attending a press view for the Constable exhibition at the gallery.
Entering via Fortnum’s food hall, she ‘picked up a few bits and pieces including some pasta sauce’.
It was only when she reached the bag check that it dawned on her that it ‘wasn’t the right thing to bring’ into the museum.
She added: ‘I handed in the bag, got a ticket to retrieve it and learned my lesson. Did it make me want to curb my carbon emissions or vote Green? […] it did not. It made me want to kick a polar bear, or, better still, an environmental activist.’
Phoebe Plummer 23, and Anna Holland, 22, caused as much as £10,000 worth of damage to an artwork’s gold-coloured frame when they targeted Van Gogh’s Sunflowers at London’s National Gallery in 2022.
Plummer received a two-year jail term, while Holland was handed 20 months.
The protesters, wearing Just Stop Oil T-shirts, threw two tins of Heinz tomato soup over the 1888 work in October 2022, before kneeling down in front of the painting and gluing their hands to the wall beneath it.
They denied but were convicted of damaging property by a jury after a four day trial at Southwark Crown Court.
Plummer (left) received a two-year jail term, while Holland (right) was handed 20 months for causing as much as £10,000 worth of damage to an artwork’s gold-coloured frame when they targeted Van Gogh’s Sunflowers at London’s National Gallery in 2022
Protesters from Just Stop Oil cover John Constable’s The Hay Wain at the National Gallery in London on July 4, 2022
Art critic JJ Charlesworth posted on ‘X’, formerly known as Twitter, saying: ‘So thanks to the clowns at Just Stop Oil and Youth Demand, more checks and queues at the National Gallery.
‘Artworks and museums that hold them for society’s benefit are not soapboxes for activists wanting to impose their hysteria on a public they can’t convince otherwise. Get out and stay out.’
Another person posted: ‘As a kid, if we went to a museum in London, my grandparents would bring a picnic for lunch (we’d eat it Green Park).
The actions of Just Stop Oil will, primarily, deter normal people who love culture but lack means from visiting our great museums. It’s myopic and regrettable.’
In 2022, two Just Stop Oil activists, Hannah Hunt and Eden Lazarus, covered the world-famous The Hay Wain painting by John Constable with their own version featuring double yellow lines, pollution and a washing machine.
In 2022, two Just Stop Oil activists, Hannah Hunt and Eden Lazarus, covered the world-famous The Hay Wain painting by John Constable with their own version
The pair were each handed an 18-month conditional discharge and ordered to pay the National Gallery £540.74 each in compensation, totalling the cost of the damage
The group said their reimagined version of the 1821 priceless work, which depicts a rural scene on the River Stour in Suffolk, shows a ‘nightmare scene that demonstrates how oil will destroy our countryside’.
Art historians and experts raised concerns that the two Brighton university students, who have appeared at Just Stop Oil protests before, could have caused irreparable damage to the 19th century masterpiece.
But The National Gallery later released a statement clarifying The Hay Wain suffered minor damage to its frame and on the painting’s varnish, both of which would be dealt with before it is re-hung in Gallery Room 34.
The pair each handed an 18-month conditional discharge and ordered to pay the National Gallery £540.74 each in compensation, totalling the cost of the damage.
The National Gallery has been contacted for comment.
***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk