Climate activists throw soup on Van Gogh paintings hours after colleagues are sentenced to jail

Two climate activists, Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland, were sentenced to jail on September 27, 2024, for throwing tomato soup on Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting in London’s National Gallery in 2022. Plummer received a two-year sentence, while Holland was sentenced to 20 months. During the trial, Plummer stated, “I’ve found peace in acting on my conscience.” Their protest caused £10,000 in damage to the painting's 17th-century Italian frame, though the painting itself was unharmed.

Just hours after the sentencing, three new protesters, wearing Just Stop Oil T-shirts, threw soup at two other Van Gogh paintings in the same gallery. One of the protesters shouted, “There are people in prison for demanding an end to new oil and gas,” as other visitors reacted with shock.

This protest is part of a broader wave of climate activism by the UK-based group Just Stop Oil, which has sparked international copycat protests. Judge Christopher Hehir, who presided over both the Sunflowers case and other similar cases, said during sentencing, “The pair of you came within the thickness of a pane of glass of irreparably damaging or even destroying this priceless treasure.”

Environmental groups like Greenpeace criticized the sentences as disproportionate, with co-executive director Will McCallum calling the punishment “draconian.” The effectiveness of these protests remains debated, with some seeing them as necessary for awareness, while others criticize their impact on public perception.