A safety guard who lately vandalized a Thirties-era portray all through his first shift at a museum in Russia has been suspended for what a best legit on the museum known as “a silly mistake.”
In December, the guard on the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Middle in Yekaterinburg, Russia, used a ballpoint pen to attract eyes on two of the faceless topics of “3 Figures,” which the artist Anna Leporskaya painted from 1932 to 1934. The portray, which used to be on mortgage to the middle from a museum in Moscow, used to be a part of a short lived exhibition of avant-garde paintings.
The Yeltsin middle, which is devoted to Russia’s first elected president, didn’t announce the vandalism on the time. However after a record of the incident ultimate month through The Artwork Newspaper Russia drew global consideration, the middle stated in a remark that “there used to be an twist of fate.”
In an interview with The New York Occasions on Tuesday, Alexander Drozdov, the chief director of the middle, known the guard as Alexander Vasilyev and stated he were suspended all through a police investigation of the vandalism. The guard is hired through a non-public safety corporate and were operating his first shift on the museum.
“He made a silly mistake,” Mr. Drozdov stated.
In an interview this month with E1, a Russian information outlet, Mr. Vasilyev stated he were a “idiot” for harmful the portray, which he stated he idea used to be a “youngsters’s drawing.” He additionally stated teenage guests on the museum had requested him to attract at the portray.
Mr. Drozdov stated that “3 Figures” were valued at about 75 million rubles ($974,000) and that the wear, which used to be lined through insurance coverage, would price about 250,000 rubles ($3,300) to mend.
“To be bluntly talking, it used to be now not an enormous injury,” Mr. Drozdov stated. “It used to be now not dramatic. The fellow used his ball pen.” The museum stated it anticipated the pen marks may well be got rid of with out harmful the portray.
Mr. Drozdov stated safety cameras had recorded what he known as a “smashing efficiency” through Mr. Vasilyev, who used a memento pen from the middle to attract at the portray. He then informed others that he didn’t really feel smartly and left.
Guests spotted the wear in a while later on and reported it to the museum’s body of workers. The portray used to be due to this fact assessed through a recovery knowledgeable and returned to its house on the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.
The museum has since put in protecting monitors over its art work, and Mr. Drozdov stated it used to be operating with the safety corporate to toughen its hiring procedure.
“3 Figures” is the newest piece of paintings to undergo random injury. In 2018, certainly one of Russia’s most famed art work, “Ivan the Horrible and His Son Ivan on November 16, 1581,” through Ilya Repin, used to be badly broken in a Moscow gallery after a person attacked it with a steel pole. And ultimate yr, a paint-splattered canvas value greater than $400,000 on show at a shopping center in Seoul used to be vandalized through a pair who idea the paintings used to be a participatory mural.
