On Thursday morning (19 June) a supporter of the environmental activism group Last Generation’s Canadian chapter splattered pink paint on Pablo Picasso’s 1901 portrait L'hétaïre at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA). A representative for the museum said that the painting was quickly inspected and there were “no immediate signs of damage” to the canvas, which was behind protective glass.
The Picasso painting, an early Blue Period portrait from the permanent collection of the Pinacoteca Agnelli in Turin, is a star attraction in the special exhibition Berthe Weill: Art Dealer of the Parisian Avant-garde (until 7 September). It was immediately removed from view and the rest of the exhibition reopened to the public around an hour after the incident, at 11.30am. According to a spokesperson for Last Generation Canada, the activist, identified only as Marcel, was quickly arrested, “charged with mischief under $5,000” and released later on Thursday.
The protest came amid a dire and deadly wildfire season that has enveloped much of Canada—currently, according to the non-profit Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, there are more than 250 active wildfires in the country—particularly in the province of Manitoba in the Prairies region.
“We value paint strokes and colour composition over life itself,” the activist, Marcel, said in a statement. “A lot more resources have been put in place to secure and protect this artwork than to protect living, breathing people. So, what do the elite actually value? We are now facing a dilemma: to protect art made by long dead artists for no one to see, or to protect the new and future artistic geniuses for their works to be seen by our children and grandchildren. Art only flourishes when people live, not when they survive. Who in Manitoba, where wildfires have been raging, even has the time and energy right now to become the next Picasso?”
Last Generation Canada protester Marcel (centre) and a Montreal Museum of Fine Arts security guard in the gallery following the paint-plattering of Pablo Picasso's L'hétaïre (1901) Courtesy Last Generation Canada
Members of Last Generation Canada are calling on the federal government to create a Climate Disaster Protection Agency to help people and communities affected by natural disasters that have been made more likely and extreme by human-caused climate change. In a statement, the organisation urged the government to fund this new agency by “levying punitive taxes against the ultra-rich, as well as fossil fuel executives and bank [chief executives], who are profiting from the climate crisis”.
The action at the MMFA on Thursday was part of a series of protests Last Generation Canada has staged in Montreal over the past three weeks. The group also blocked one of the city’s main thoroughfares, Rue Saint-Denis, splattered pink paint on the exterior of the city’s casino and the Bank of Montreal Museum.
There have been relatively few climate actions targeting art museums in Canada. One, involving maple syrup and an Emily Carr painting at the Vancouver Art Gallery, occurred in 2022. Another, in which an activist smeared pink paint on a Tom Thomson canvas at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, occurred in August 2023. However, as such actions became more frequent at museums around the world in recent years, the MMFA implemented new security protocols in 2022 requiring all large bags to be left at the cloakroom and smaller bags to be thoroughly inspected by security personnel.
"The MMFA administration is deeply dismayed by this incident,” Stéphane Aquin, the museum’s director, said in a statement. “It is most unfortunate that this act carried out in the name of environmental activism targeted a work belonging to our global cultural heritage and under safekeeping for the benefit of future generations. Art is another powerful tool for social change. Museums and artists alike are allies in the fight for a better world.”
It is not clear how Marcel was able to conceal the paint used in his action; in a video of the incident he can be seen holding what appears to be a small can of pink paint. In its statement, the MMFA noted that the activist had used “water-based paint”, and Last Generation Canada’s statement described it as “washable pink paint”. The museum is now conducting a “thorough condition report” on L'hétaïre.
