Two Just Stop Oil activists jailed for throwing soup at a Van Gogh painting

Two Just Stop Oil activists, Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland, have been jailed for throwing tomato soup at Vincent van Gogh’s painting ‘Sunflowers’ in the National Gallery in 2022.

Former Dazed cover star Plummer, 23, was sentenced to two years in prison for causing an estimated £10,000 worth of damage to the artwork’s frame, while their codefendant Holland, 22, received 20 months for the same offence. She will serve only half her sentence in custody.

Plummer gave a 20-minute address to the judge in mitigation, in which they cited Emmeline Pankhurst, Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela as examples of people who had been criminalised while fighting for justice. They added that they would accept their sentence “with a smile”. 

“On 14 October 2022 and in November 2023 I made the choices to take actions that I knew would likely lead to my arrest and prosecution,” they said. “I made those choices because I believe that non-violent civil resistance is the best, if not the only, tool that people have in order to bring about the rapid change required to protect life from the accelerating climate emergency and the political decisions being made that pour fuel on the flames and which sentence us all to a catastrophic future.”

“I chose to peacefully disrupt a business-as-usual system that is unjust, dishonest and murderous,” they added.

Passing sentence at Southwark crown court on Friday, the judge, Christopher Hehir, told the pair: “You two simply had no right to do what you did to ‘Sunflowers’ and your arrogance in assuming otherwise deserves the strongest condemnation.”

Plummer and Holland were also barred from mentioning the climate crisis in their evidence to the jury. “The position in law is that the motivation of either defendant and their convictions about climate change – however sincerely held – are not a defence to the allegation they face”, the judge instructed the jury.

The two activists threw soup at the famous Van Gogh painting back in October 2022 before glueing themselves to the wall beneath in protest against continued climate injustice. In July, they were found guilty of criminal damage; Judge Hehir told them at the time to be “prepared, in practical and emotional terms, to go to prison”.

UPDATE (September 27): Hours after the sentencing of Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland, Just Stop Oil activists threw soup over two Van Gogh paintings in the ‘Post and Lovers’ exhibition at the National Gallery.

In a video posted by the activist group on X, the protesters stood in front of the paintings, delivering a message of solidarity with Plummer and Holland:

“There are people in prison for demanding an end to new oil and gas – something which is now government policy. After sustained, disruptive actions, countless headlines, and the resulting political pressure, future generations will regard these prisoners of conscience as being on the right side of history.”