"The pictures are not guilty": National Gallery director on Just Stop Oil attacks

The director of London's National Gallery, Gabriele Finaldi, has said the paintings targeted by Just Stop Oil protesters "are not guilty."

Finaldi made the remarks in a Telegraph profile written by Peter Stanford, as reported by ArtNews. He has led the gallery, one of the best-known art museums in the world, since 2015. He called the protests "a sad thing" and said of the attacks: "Those attacks were very shocking."

Just Stop Oil is a climate campaign group. Its activists have targeted artworks in several countries, and the gallery in Trafalgar Square has been one of the places where they have acted. Finaldi's comments return to a question that has run through museum life since those protests began: how do you protect a painting from people who want to use it to make a point?

The gallery had already faced that question in 2022. Its board of trustees, the group that oversees the institution, met on 24 November 2022 and heard from the Head of Security about tighter measures after a Just Stop Oil protest involving cans of tomato soup.

Finaldi's argument is about attention. He said the activists were looking for front-page coverage, and that they knew an attack on a painting would reach newspapers around the world, while breaking the windows of an insurance company probably would not. He spoke directly to the protesters, telling them: "Don't come to the National Gallery to do it."

For the people who look after these works, the stakes are practical. Conservators, guards and handlers have to be ready for an attack at any time, and insurers have to price the risk. Each new incident means more checks at the door, more staff time and, often, more distance between the public and the paintings themselves.