According to the Guardian, on February 10, the painting “Three Characters” by artist Anna Leporskaya was damaged by a security guard because he felt “bored”.
Recently, the international art-loving community has witnessed a funny story related to the story of a painting exhibition, when a male security guard, for unknown reasons, took a ballpoint pen to “draw” ” onto a painting in the gallery where he worked. The problem is, this is not an ordinary painting, but a masterpiece of art valued at up to a million dollars.
Original painting (Source: Internet)
And the picture, after being “edited” by the guard, added two eyes for the “character”.
It is known that the painting “Three characters” without five senses was completed in 2 years by the late artist Anna Leporskaya (1932-1934) and was insured for 75 million rubles (one million USD ~ nearly 23 billion VND). . The painting was displayed in an abstract art exhibition at the Boris Yeltsin Center in Ekaterinburg last December.
On the first day of work at this center, the 60-year-old security guard used a ballpoint pen to draw the eyes of the character in the picture. The security guard did not use too much force when drawing the eyes, so in general the painting was not seriously damaged and could be restored. The cost of retouching the painting is expected to cost more than $3,300, the restoration expert at Tretyakov estimates. He damaged the painting “with a pen branded Yeltsin Center” (According to the curator of the exhibition – Anna Reshetkina). Alexander Drozdov, executive director of the Yeltsin Center, did not identify the guard but said he worked for a private security company and was fired.
Although the motive of this person’s damage is not clear, the Ministry of Culture has made a complaint to the prosecutor general’s office. Russian police later announced that they had opened an investigation, and the suspect could face the risk of fines and three months in prison or a year of community service. After the incident, the Yeltsin Center installed shields to protect the remaining works in the exhibition.
This is not the first time paintings have been vandalized in Russia. In 2019, a man was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison after ripping a painting in Tretyakov.
See more: 5th graders burn 36 million lucky money to buy card-games, card shop owners risk being punished by law
