Helen Frankenthaler “The Bay” / chewing gum

(In 2006, a 12-year-old boy stuck his chewing gum to the corner of the painting, then on display at the Detroit Institute of Arts. The museum’s conservation lab successfully cleaned and restored the work, which was put back on display later that year.)

Ilya Repin “Ivan Grozny and his son Ivan”/ knife

(In 1913, a 29-year-old iconographer named Abram Balashev attacked the painting while it was on view in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, repeatedly screaming “Stop the bloodshed!” as he did it. Balashev was found mentally ill and restricted to a psychiatric hospital. The painting was able to be restored.)

Nicolas Poussin “Adoration of the Golden Calf” and ““The Adoration of the Shepherds” / spray paint

(In 2011, these two paintings were defaced by a 57-year-old male visitor while on view at the National Gallery in London. Both paintings were able to be restored.)

Diego Velazquez “Rokeby Venus” (detail) / meat cleaver

This painting was attacked in 1914 while on view at London’s National Gallery. Mary Richardson, a suffragette, used a meat cleaver she’d hidden in her coat, slashing the canvas repeatedly. She later declared her deed as an act of protest against the arrest of fellow suffragette Emmaline Parkhurst.

Upon her arrest, she issued the following letter of explanation: 

“I have tried to destroy the picture of the most beautiful woman in mythological history as a protest against the Government for destroying Mrs Parkhurst, who is the most beautiful character in modern history. Justice is an element of beauty as much as colour and outline on canvas. Mrs Pankhurst seeks to procure justice for womanhood, and for this she is being slowly murdered by a Government of Iscariot politicians. If there is an outcry against my deed, let every one remember that such an outcry is an hypocrisy so long as they allow the destruction of Mrs. Parkhurst and other beautiful living women, and that until the public cease to countenance human destruction the stones cast against me for the destruction of this picture are each an evidence against them of artistic as well as moral and political humbug and hypocrisy.”

Dick Bengtsson “Kumla Prison” / potato salad

(At a reception given by the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, artist Olle Carlström pressed a plate of potato salad onto the swastika featured in Dick Bengtsson’s painting of the Kumla prison auditorium and its constructivist tapestry. Carlström, an expressionistic painter, could not raise his glass in the presence of a painting that included a swastika.)

Jan van Assen “Willem V” / instrument unknown (defaced in 1795)

Buddhas of Bamyan / explosives

(Monumental statues of buddhas carved into the side of a cliff in the Bamyan valley in Afghanistan sometime in the 6th century, leveled with explosives by the Taliban in 2001)

Damien Hirst “Away From the Flock” / black pigment

(In 1994, an artist named Mark Bridger walked up to the piece - a white lamb floating in a tank of formaldehyde - and poured black pigment into it, creating a new work he called “Black Sheep”)

Tracy Emin “My Bed” / human bodies

(In an effort to improve the work and make it less “institutionalized,” Chinese performance artists Cai Yuan and Jian Jun Xi disrobed and jumped onto the bed while it was on view at the Tate Modern in London. They called their action, Two Naked Men Jump Into Tracey’s Bed.)

French artist Sam Rindy, during her trial for damaging a Cy Twombly painting by kissing it, leaving a red lipstick stain

Hans-Joachim Bohlmann

German serial vandal who primarily targeted artworks at public exhibitions. Between 1977 and 2006, he damaged over 50 paintings by such artists as Rubens, Rembrandt, and Durer. 

three Chinese vases, Qing dynasty (17th century) / human body

(In 2006, a museum visitor tripped on his shoelace and stumbled into these 17th-century vases while they were on view at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. As one witness described the incident: “We watched the man fall as if in slow motion. He landed in the middle of the vases and they splintered into a million pieces. He was still sitting there stunned when staff appeared. Everyone stood around in silence, as if in shock. The man kept pointing to his shoelace, saying, ‘There it is; that’s the culprit.’ ”)

Pablo Picasso “Guernica” / spray paint

(Vandalized by then-artist / current-art-dealer Tony Shafrazi, who in 1974 smuggled a can of red spray paint into MOMA and wrote “KILL LIES ALL” across the painting. Shafrazi was apparently protesting Nixon’s pardon of William Calley, a participant in the My Lai massacre. As police took him into custody, Shafrazi said, “Call the curator. I am an artist.” The spraypaint was non-archival and easily removed.)

Laszlo Toth, shouting “I am Jesus Christ - risen from the dead,” immediately prior to vandalizing Michelangelo’s “Pieta,” May 21 1972

Laszlo Toth immediately after vandalizing Michelangelo’s “Pieta,” May 21 1972

Michelangelo “Pieta” / geologist’s hammer

Jackson Pollock “Drips on Black” / fire

Claude Monet “La Pont d'Argenteuil” / drunken fist

(In 2007, one of a group of “drunken intruders” punched a hole in this work while it was on view at the Orsay Museum in Paris. The break-in occurred as the city held its annual “all-night festival,” which brings thousands of people into the streets for music, sidewalk exhibits, and other activities. The intruders broke into the museum in the early hours of the morning and left when, upon inflicting the damage, alarms began to sound. At a later press conference, French Culture Minister Christine Albanel openly wondered how the intruders were able to enter the museum so easily, through what she said must have been a “fragile” door. She also wondered how they were able to force their way out through a different door – one that was supposed to be held firmly shut by bolts. While no arrests were made, the work was able to be restored.)

Still from 2007 video footage of neo-Nazis breaking into a Swedish museum and destroying works by Andres Serrano. The video was posted to YouTube but removed soon after.

Andres Serrano “Piss Christ” / hammer

(This controversial 1987 photograph has been attacked on multiple occasions - most recently in 2011, when a man smashed the work with the hammer while the piece was on view at Collection Lambert in Avignon, France. According to museum guards, a group of men arrived at the gallery at closing time. Two of them attempted to smuggle cans of paint spray and a chisel in their jackets. The guard noticed and proceeded to confiscate the objects - during which a third man took a hammer (or icepick or screwdriver, it remains unclear) to Serrano’s piece. The attacker struggled with the guard, but helped by one of his accomplices, managed to escape. In the struggle, another Serrano work, “The Church (Sister Jeanne-Myriam),” was also damaged.

“Piss Christ” had been previously vandalized in 1997 (twice). The attacks took place within days of each other, while the work was on view at the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia. The first incident occurred when 51 year old John Allen Haywood took the photograph from the wall and kicked it. Haywood received a one month suspended jail term. He later told the press, “You can go so far with taking the piss, you understand….It riles me, it really gets me very upset.” Asked what he would say to Serrano, he replied"I wouldn’t like to say nothing to him. I’d just like to punch him on the nose.“ Haywood’s actions caused slight damage to the photograph’s framing, but none to the work itself.

The very next day, two male teenagers also attacked the piece. According to witnesses, one teenager acted as a decoy, kicking a print on the opposite wall to distract museum guards. As the guards rushed to subdue him, the other teenager attacked Piss Christ with a hammer. Both teens were arrested; the print was damaged beyond repair.

In 2007, a group of neo-Nazis attacked a Serrano show in Sweden, although Piss Christ was not on display there.)