Faceless painting worth $1.5m ruined after 'bored' security guard draws eyes on it

A security guard on his first day at work in an art gallery vandalised a $1.5 million painting by a student of one of Russia's greatest avant-garde painters by doodling eyes and a mouth onto a bare face.

Visitors spotted the additions scrawled in pen on the faceless subjects of Anna Leporskaya's Three Figures (1932-34) while the painting was on loan to the Yeltsin Centre in the city of Yekaterinburg in the Urals.

Police refused to track down the perpetrator, dismissing the damage to the painting as insignificant. But a full investigation was launched in January after an intervention by the culture ministry.

"The person who drew the eyes on the figures in the painting of Anna Leporskaya has been identified: This is an employee of a private firm that provided security," the Yeltsin Centre said.

First day at work

Curator Anna Reshetkina, who organised a meeting with the Yeltsin's Centre's director on Monday, said the painting was vandalised by a 60-year-old guard on his first day at work.

"The security guard drew the eyes with a Yeltsin Centre-branded pen," she said.

"His motives are still unknown but the administration believes it was some kind of a lapse in sanity."

Three Figures by Anna Leporskaya before it was vandalised ... Photo / Australscope

After they were vandalised. Photo / Australscope

The unnamed man reportedly did not show up for work for several days after the incident and switched off his phone as he was "very upset about what happened", according to Reshetkina.

Local media reported that although the room was packed with CCTV cameras, the gallery originally rejected suggestions that it was an inside job and filed the police report only two weeks later.

The Yekaterinburg police last week reported the arrest without providing any details but said the man was "quite aggressive and made it clear he did not like the investigation".

The suspect faces a hefty fine or three months in jail if found guilty.

Put up protective screens

Anna Leposkaya, born in Kyiv in 1900, is a well-known student of Kazirmir Malevich, one of the fathers of abstract art.

Russia's Art Newspaper reported that the damage was not irreversible thanks to the man's soft stroke even though the pen's ink penetrated the paint layer. The insurance company that valued the painting at $1.5 million has agreed to pay about $5000 for restoration work in Moscow.

The Yeltsin Centre has since put up protective screens over the remaining works in the avant-garde exhibition.

Russia has a history of vandals defacing works of art while claiming they felt disturbed by them.

In 2018, a man at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow attacked a 19th century painting by Russian artist Ilya Repin with a stanchion, leaving holes in the canvas.

The man, from southern Russia, said in court that after having a shot of vodka in the museum canteen he thought the painting, that depicts the first czar cradling his dying son after striking him in a fit of rage, smeared Ivan the Terrible whom he regarded as a saint.

The Tretyakov Gallery said it was so shocked by the violent attack that it was considering hiring psychologists to help pick out potentially dangerous visitors.