10 Ridiculous Ways Works of Art Have Been Ruined
Mankind’s admiration for art is strange. Why do people attach so much importance to things made of such fragile materials? The full answer may never be known, but people have become very good at protecting valuable art. Very good, but not perfect. The world is too unpredictable to take precautions against every eventuality, and this list shows how artists, collectors and curators have learned this the hard way, often at great cost.
The lucky ones on this list either deliberately destroyed their work or were able to repair it, but some weren’t so lucky. This list is sure to cause as much schadenfreude from those who find the art world pretentious as it does from others. Here are ten ridiculous ways works of art have been ruined.
Related: 10 insanely expensive paintings that will leave you scratching your head
10 Mixed up with trash
A surprisingly common occurrence is modern art being mistaken for trash. There have been several reported cases of cleaners throwing away art, but they were never old master paintings. However, it still comes with a hefty price tag.
In 2014, pieces by the artist Sala Murat were thrown away by a gallery owner in southern Italy, who mistook them for waste. The items were made from newspaper, cardboard and cookie pieces and were scattered across the floor. She thought it was trash left behind by the workers who set up the exhibit. Garbage collectors had already taken the pieces away when security noticed that things were missing.
Fortunately, the cleaning company’s insurance covered the estimated value of 10,000 euros of the pieces. The situation is similar to when a 2001 installation of beer bottles, coffee cups and ashtrays by British artist Damien Hirst was accidentally thrown away in a London gallery. The same thing happened in 2004 with a paper and cardboard bag designed by German artist Gustav Metzger.[1]
9 Eaten by visitor
Maurizio Cattelan came up with a formula for success in the world of modern art: take a one-word title, like “Comedian,” stick a banana on the wall, then stick the former on the latter. That simple idea sold for $120,000 in 2019. Perhaps he should have stuck with the tradition of painting fruit instead of using the real thing, as the banana was eaten at least twice while on display.
It was first eaten by a performance artist in Miami in 2019, shortly after it was sold. The second time was when it was on display at the Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul. A South Korean student named Noh Huyn-soo, who later told reporters that he was hungry because he had skipped breakfast, casually grabbed the banana from the wall and ate it in front of a stunned crowd as his friend filmed him. He then taped the banana peel back to the same spot on the wall. The museum did not demand any compensation, probably because the banana had to be replaced every few days anyway.[2]
8 Beaten by visitor
Setting up an exhibition is difficult. Visitors should be able to get close enough to appreciate the details of a painting. At the same time, people can be clumsy or overenthusiastic, and the paintings they are close to can cost millions of dollars. It’s a fine line. Organizers of exhibitions at Taipei’s Huashan 1914 Gallery found out they were on the wrong side of the line when a stumbling schoolboy put his fist through a $1.5 million 17th-century painting in 2015.
The student was apparently so engrossed in listening to his group’s guide that he tripped over the barrier in front of the painting. He reached out to steady himself, putting one hand straight through the painting as he spilled his drink on it as well.
The curator, who had given special permission for guests to get so close to the paintings, was said to have been literally speechless for several minutes when he heard what had happened. It was clearly an accident, so the boy and his family didn’t have to pay anything. The painting Flowers by the Italian Baroque artist Paolo Porpora could be restored by experts.[3]
7 Tagged by visitor (who should have known better)
A stumbling schoolboy reaching out to steady himself is one thing, but it’s another thing entirely for an art collector to destroy a sculpture by doing something that repeatedly warns people not to do: the art to touch. That’s what happened in Miami in 2023 when, for some unknown reason, an unnamed collector decided to buy one of the iconic Balloon Dog sculptures by the American artist Jeff Koons.
The $42,000 piece promptly fell off the pedestal and shattered into thousands of small pieces. The busy gallery was brought to a standstill as people gathered to see what had happened. Ironically, the destruction of the sculpture was a good thing for some people in the art world. The statue was part of a limited edition, which had now become even more limited – a good thing for collectors. One even offered to buy the broken shards of the statue.[4]
6 Bent by owner
Some people speak as much with their hands as with their mouths. Billionaire casino magnate Steve Wynn is one such person. It was this trait that almost cost him a fortune in 2006 when he showed a group of friends a famous Picasso he owned. Wynn also suffers from an eye condition that affects his peripheral vision.
So while we have the origin of Le Reve—Picasso’s portrait of his mistress—to his guests, Wynn gestured with his right hand as he stood in front of the painting. Then he heard a tearing sound. He was standing too close and had hit the painting with his elbow, tearing a small hole in the bottom right corner. The incident became known as “The $40-Million Elbow,” even though Wynn was originally paid $48.4 million.
But the worst part was that he had just agreed to sell it for $139 million. It would have been the highest price ever paid for a work of art. Fortunately for him, the crack was small enough to be repaired, and he eventually sold the painting to the same buyer for $155 million.[5]
5 Shredded by artist
Despite being one of the leading artists, anonymous British graffiti artist Banksy is not afraid to make fun of the art world. A 2018 prank he pulled on Sotheby’s auction house demonstrated this perfectly. One of his own works was auctioned: a famous spray paint and acrylic image of a young girl reaching for a heart-shaped balloon.
The image was on a canvas surrounded by a heavy-looking gold frame, as you usually see around old paintings. When bidding stopped, a buyer had agreed to pay $1.4 million for the piece. Little did they know that the artist had a surprise in store for the auction visitors. Suddenly the photo slid through the frame, the bottom of which contained a shredder.
From the bottom of the frame the image began to emerge again in long, thin ribbons. It is believed that Banksy’s self-destruct art was activated by a remote device. The artist bided his time. A video uploaded to his Instagram showing the secret shredder being installed into the frame was accompanied by the text “a few years ago.”[6]
4 Destroyed by Christopher Walken
The Sotheby’s incident wouldn’t be the only time Banksy engaged in the creative destruction of his own work. In 2021, some of his art was featured in a BBC comedy-drama series written by Stephen Merchant and starring Christopher Walken. Set in Banksy and Merchant’s home city of Bristol, the series followed a group of petty criminals as they completed community service by redesigning a community centre.
One wall in the final episode featured graffiti of a spray-painted rat, painted in Banksy’s classic stencil style. The artist’s name was written above it in dripping orange spray paint. Christopher Walken played con man Frank, who is ordered by his supervisor to paint over all the graffiti. He does as he’s told, which must have led to some shock when a show spokesperson later confirmed that Walken had in fact painted over a real Banksy original. However, it was created by the artist specifically for the show.[7]
3 Burned because Churchill hated it
In 1954, one of Britain’s leading artists was asked to paint Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill in honor of Churchill’s 80th birthday. It became the most famous portrait he painted, although it was never seen in public again after its unveiling. The artist was Graham Sutherland, known for his surrealist modern paintings. Although highly respected, he proved to be the wrong choice for Churchill’s portrait.
Sutherland refused to let the Prime Minister preview the portrait because he wanted to paint Churchill as he saw him and not how Churchill wanted to be painted. The historian Simon Schama later explained that Sutherland saw Churchill as a “beautiful ruin.” Churchill did not like this.
During the unveiling ceremony, Churchill condescendingly described the portrait as “a remarkable example of modern art.” He did not allow it to be hung in the Houses of Parliament and instead took it home. It was never seen again. The portrait was hidden in the cellar until Churchill’s wife asked her private secretary to secretly dispose of it. The secretary and her brother took the painting in the middle of the night and burned it.[8]
2 Defaced by bored security guard (on his first day)
This list has prevented cases of vandalism, not because the number is limited. In fact, there are so many stories about the vandalism of famous works of art that they have been widely discussed elsewhere. Besides theft, it is one of the main reasons that galleries and museums have security guards. And you can trust them not to tamper with the art, right? Not when boredom takes over, apparently.
In 2022, a security guard working at an abstract art exhibition in Moscow decided that his boredom would be alleviated if the faceless figures in a painting by Russian avant-garde artist Anna Leporskaya had eyes. So he took out his ballpoint pen and added them. It was his first day on the job and he would soon see his last, as he was rightfully fired for damaging the painting, worth nearly $900,000.
The painting was sent to professional restorers, who reported that it could be repaired without permanent damage. However, the cost of repairing those four small circles was a few thousand dollars.[9]
1 Struck by lightning
People can be counted on to be clumsy, ignorant and mischievous. While cases like those in this list are rare, given enough time, they are virtually unavoidable. But what are the chances of art being destroyed by lightning? An extremely long time, you might think, and yet it happened.
In 2021, a mural commemorating police brutality victim George Floyd in Toledo, Ohio, was damaged beyond repair when the wall on which it was painted was struck by lightning and collapsed into rubble. It had been painted just a year earlier by a local artist named David Ross. Ross said the goal was to never forget what happened to George Floyd after he was killed in May 2020.
Witnesses saw the lightning strike the large mural painted on the wall of a building. The building survived the strike. However, Ross said he would choose a location where the mural would be visible to more people if he were to repaint it. Toledo’s mayor confirmed that the city’s arts council would ensure the mural was replaced.[10]