[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/national-gallery-london.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tTwo activists affiliated with Youth Demand, a group calling for the British government to end economic trade with Israel as well as the cessation of new licenses for fossil fuels, were found guilty of criminal damage after covering a Picasso painting with an image of a mother and child in Gaza. Jai Halai, age 25, and Monday-Malachi Rosenfeld, 23, were convicted by a jury over the incident at the National Gallery in London in October 2024. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tAs reported by Jewish News<\/em>, \u201cDuring the protest, they placed a large photograph of a mother and child from Gaza over the protective glass protecting Picasso\u2019s 1901 painting Motherhood<\/em> before pouring water-based paint onto the gallery floor and chanting slogans calling for Britain to end trade with Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe painting was not damaged as a result of the action, but the floor of the gallery required repair after paint seeped down. Michael Willie, the National Gallery\u2019s head of security and facilities, reportedly said during the trial: \u201cPaint was on the marble skirting, stanchion, rope barriers, and it was seeping into the sockets. Just staining in the grains of the marble, the mastic joint, we had to replace it in its entirety.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tJurors were told the protest cost the National Gallery \u00a38,000, around $10,600, to be able to reopen the gallery the following day. Halai and Rosenfeld were released on bail in advance of sentencing, which is scheduled for September.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/activists-covered-picasso-gaza-national-gallery-1234793701\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/national-gallery-london.jpg?w=1024″] Two activists affiliated with Youth Demand, a group calling for the British government to end economic trade with Israel as well as the cessation of new licenses for fossil fuels, were found guilty of criminal damage after covering a Picasso painting with an image of a mother and child in Gaza. Jai […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2067588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2067588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067588\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2067588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2067588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2067588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}