2 Protesters Sentenced for Throwing Soup at Van Gogh’s Painting — More Make the Same Act

Attacks on Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” paintings continued Friday, the same day two were sentenced for throwing tomato soup on paintings two years ago.

Three Just Stop Oil activists threw soup at two paintings in London’s National Gallery, Reuters reported.

National Gallery officials said three people were under arrest and the paintings were not harmed.

This latest stint came hours after two other members of Just Stop Oil were sentenced for doing the same protest in 2022.

Phoebe Plummer, 23, and Anna Holland, 22, were sentenced for throwing cans of tomato soup in October 2022. They also glued themselves to the wall under the painting.

The frame sustained about 10,000 pounds ($13,385) worth of damage in 2022, prosecutors said.

The painting was not harmed since it was behind a protective protective screen. It was able to be put back on display later that day.

Plummer and Holland were convicted after being found guilty in a trial at London’s Southwark Crown Court.

Plummer was sentenced to two years in prison for the criminal damage charge and Holland was sentenced to 20 months in prison.

Judge Christopher Hehir addressed the two defendants at sentencing.

“You two simply had no right to do what you did to ‘Sunflowers,’ and your arrogance in thinking otherwise deserves the strongest condemnation,” he said.

Judge Hehir added, “Your culpability is at level A. You did reconnaissance and planning and talked to a journalist. Your harm is at category 1, which means extreme harm to society,” per a post on the Just Stop Oil website.

“The action you took was extreme, disproportionate and criminally idiotic given the risks involved,” he said. “There is nothing peaceful or nonviolent about throwing soup. Throwing soup in someone’s face is violent.” 

Plummer said she knew she risked being arrested and jailed. She called herself a political prisoner, Reuters reported.

The judge, on the other hand, said this view was ludicrous and self-indulgent.

“It is offensive to the many people in other parts of the world who are suffering persecution, imprisonment and sometimes death for their beliefs,” Hehir said.

Plummer received an additional three months in prison after she was convicted in a separate trial for interfering with the use of a key national infrastructure.

Politico reported that on Thursday, more than 100 artists, curators and art historians asked the judge for clemency in a letter. 

“Art can be and frequently is, iconoclasm. These activists should not receive custodial sentences for an act that connects entirely to the artistic canon,” they said.

In Friday’s action, the activists threw tomato soup at the “Sunflowers” owned by the London Gallery, the same painting from two years ago. The second was from the series that is on loan from Philadelphia Museum of Art in a temporary exhibition, Reuters reported.