Two environmental activists who glued themselves to a J.M.W. Turner painting at Manchester Art Gallery in July 2022 were acquitted today in a Manchester court. The pair affixed themselves to the frame of Tomson’s Aeolian Harp (1809) by Turner and sprayed “No New Oil” and the Just Stop Oil logo on the floor with chalk…
… “The district judge found that the action was proportionate in view of the climate crisis,” a Just Stop Oil statement says. "By contrast Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland received sentences of 24 months and 20 months respectively from Judge Hehir at Southwark Crown Court last week for throwing cans of soup on the glass cover of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers in 2022.”
No, indeed. I myself am one of the many millions of people that visit the National Gallery each year to look at the frames.
As Van Gogh wrote to Gauguin: I have hung the guest bedroom here in Arles with a series of frames that you simply have to come and see.
Of course, those frames aren’t the ones on display. They’re too valuable.