February 15, 2022

Security Guard Doodles


Security Guard Doodles
Fancy girl, fancier paintings  Pexels, Una Laurencic.

A security guard was fired on his first day of work at the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Center in Yekaterinburg for defacing the Soviet-era painting, "Three Figures," by artist Anna Leporskaya. The painting features three faceless bodies alongside one another. The guard used a pen to doodle eyes onto the faces. Anna Reshetkina, the exhibition curator, states the damage was done with a pen from the Yeltsin center. 

Visitors of the center noticed the damage on December 7, 2021. The guard was fired and a criminal investigation began. The painting was removed and returned to the loaning institution, the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.

Ivan Petrov analyzed the painting for damages. Luckily, he said, the guard did not apply too much pressure with the pen, so the painting was not destroyed. But the Tretyakov estimates that restoration will cost approximately R250,000 ($3,345).

According to the Yeltsin Center, the guard's motives are unknown. A before and after look of the painting can be seen here

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