To fight boredom, a museum guard draws eyes on an 880,000 euro painting

A painting worth 880,000 euros has been destroyed after a bored security guard drew eyes on the faceless figures depicted in the artwork at a Russian gallery.

On his first day on the job, the security guard had drawn two pairs of eyes with a ballpoint pen on the painting « Three Figures » by artist Anna Leporskaya, during an abstract art exhibition at the Yeltsin Center, in the city of Yekaterinburg, in western Russia.

The name of the culprit has not been revealed but he would be 60 years old and worked for a private security company, this is in any case what the museum said in a statement about the case. Since his act, he has obviously been fired.

This act of vandalism was noticed by two visitors who were enjoying an exhibit called “The World as Non-Objectivity. The Birth of a New Art” (understand “The world as non-objectivity. The Birth of a New Art”) at the Yeltsin Center in Yekaterinburg. Passionate about art, they quickly realized the additional details of two of the three figures on the 1930s painting according to The Art Newspaper.

The table can be saved
The painting, on loan from the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, was sent back to the Russian capital the next day to be inspected by an art restorer. According to several sources, the work, damaged on December 7, is being restored.

The eyes drawn by the security guard should be able to be removed without long-term damage to the painting. Several local media claimed that the cost of the restoration, estimated at around 3,000 euros, would have been borne by the security company.

Following this incredible affair, the Russian authorities have opened an investigation for vandalism , with the potential of 470 euros and a sentence of up to one year of community service.

The sanction against the goalkeeper who drew on one of the boards of the Yeltsin Center with a ballpoint pen will certainly be made public in the coming weeks. In the meantime, museum management has refrained from commenting on the situation as investigations into the incident in conjunction with law enforcement are still ongoing.