(London) Two people briefly covered a Picasso painting at the National Gallery in London on Wednesday with a poster depicting a bloodied mother and child in the Gaza Strip, calling for an arms embargo on Israel, the museum said and the group behind this action.
The National Gallery clarified that “no damage” had been caused to the work.
The Youth Demand group, which calls for an end to arms sales to Israel, said two of its activists had plastered the photo on the protective glass covering the Picasso painting. Maternity (1901), before throwing red paint on the ground.
A video posted by this group on social media shows a guard quickly intervening to remove the photo. One of the protesters shouts “Free, free Palestine!” ” and accuses the British government of being “complicit in genocide”, while he is subdued by the guard.
The pro-Palestinian group Youth Demand in July protested arms sales to Israel in front of the Cenotaph, Britain’s official war memorial, and planned to disrupt Charles III’s speech that same month.
The events took place shortly before 12 p.m. In a press release, the National Gallery said that “the police intervened and arrested” the two people. “The room is currently closed. There was no damage to any work,” specifies the museum.
The National Gallery has recently been the scene of actions by environmental activists. At the end of September, two activists were sentenced to prison terms for throwing soup on a Van Gogh painting in 2022, Sunflowers. On the day of this conviction, the same painting as well as another version of the Sunflowers were again targeted by members of the same group.