Bored Security Guard Draws Eyes On Painting Worth Rs 7 Crore

OB Bureau

February 10, 2022 3:27 pm

New Delhi: A security guard’s job comes with a high level of alertness but it can also be very boring. Needless to say, it can be very lonely too.

No wonder a Russian gallery destroyed a painting worth £740,000 (approximately Rs 7,52,06,182) as he drew eyes on the faceless figures in the artwork simply because he was bored while on duty, India Today reported.

During an abstract art exhibition at the Yeltsin Center in Russia’s Yekaterinburg, the security guard drew two pairs of eyes with a ballpoint pen on artist Anna Leporskaya’s ‘Three Figures’ (19321934) painting, according to a Daily Mail report. He did so on the first day of his job, in fact.

The extra details on two of the three figures in the painting were spotted by two people who attended the art exhibition called ‘The World as Non-Objectivity. The Birth of a New Art’ at the Yeltsin Center on December 7, 2021, Daily Mail said in its report, citing The Art Newspaper.

The Yeltsin Center, in a statement issued earlier this week, revealed the identity of the suspect as a security guard. He has not been named, but they said that he was fired soon after. The case is under investigation.

The painting was on loan from the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. After it was damaged by the security guard, the painting was sent to the Moscow gallery so that it could be inspected by an art restorer.

As per the restoration expert at the Moscow gallery, the painting is being restored and the damage can be eliminated without any major damage to the artwork, the report added.