Rembrandt's Self Portrait at the Age of 63 was attacked with yellow paint at the National Gallery in London by Vincent Bethell, Britain's notorious nudist activist. In a letter to the website Bethell explains what took place: "I went into the gallery with the tube of acrylic paint (Bismarck yellow) in my backpack. I then walked around the Gallery for about half an hour and had a look at the Rembrandt which I had previously selected, and then I went to the toilet, where with elastic bands I fastened the tube of paint to my thigh and I removed the top.

"Now ready for action I went and sat in front of the Rembrandt and proceeded to make some notes in a student-like fashion. I was very calm and cool about everything despite my heart almost beating through my chest. I wore a woman's dress for a number of reasons but one important reason is the ease with which I could take it off in one piece, all in one go. I had practiced at home whipping the dress off over my head to reveal the tube of paint strapped to my thigh (I wore no underwear), and I also practiced grabbing (quick-draw wild west style) the tube and then painting the pound sign. I managed to get the whole thing down to about 2-3 seconds, which I considered to be enough time to outwit the security guard.

"So after sitting in front of the painting for about 10 minutes, being calm and orderly, letting people get used to the strangeness of a man wearing a dress, I slowly walked up the painting pretending that I was really interested in it and that I wanted to get a closer look. I was carrying my rucksack and my movements were sure and swift but not frantic. I put the rucksack down and then off with the dress, and then naked I painted the pound sign! I amazed myself just how quick I was, and that I even had time to smear the thick paint of the pound sign into the painting. Then the security guard grabbed me from behind and attempted to pull me away from the painting but he wasn't strong enough so he asked customers to help him and they did and eventually I was knocked to the floor and held by the guard and customers."[1]

The painting of the yellow pound sign echoed an attack on Kazimir Malevich's Suprematisme by Alexander Brener the previous year in Amsterdam, however the second attack was neither inspired or motivated by the first.

Bethell, 27 at the time of the incident is renowned for his nude protests in and around London that his group “The Freedom to Be Yourself” campaign engage in. Bethell and his entourage have held naked protests outside Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, the Old Bailey, New Scotland Yard, the National Gallery, Piccadilly Circus, St Paul's Cathedral, the Glastonbury Festival and numerous other locations around Britain.

“Curiously, given Britain's prurience about nudity, most passers by appear to be amused rather than offended by Bethell's protests.” [2] The law however and perhaps unsurprisingly are not amused, slapping him with often heavy fines and increasingly long periods incarceration. His attack on the Rembrandt resulted in him being sentenced to 12 weeks imprisonment.

The following letter from Bethell details some of his reasoning for the attack.

"I am well acquainted with Dada (anti-art) and a pound sign on Rembrandt was perhaps more courageous and skilful than a moustache on Mona Lisa. But in August1998 when I entered the National Gallery wearing a woman’s floral dress, then took off the dress to squeeze a yellow pound sign onto a Rembrandt self-portrait, my act was not a piece of art: I was not making an art statement such as “she has a hot arse,” I was not influenced by Duchamp.

"I was naked when I painted the pound sign on the Rembrandt self-portrait and I was attempting to highlight the injustice of criminalising public nakedness. I do not consider my act of painting a pound sign on Rembrandt to be a crime or vandalism. It was a naked protest that attempted to gain the right to be naked in public.

"After being arrested at the National gallery I went to court the next day, and in court I ripped off my clothes, and I was then forcibly removed from court. The prosecution stated in court that the painting was valued at 66 Million pounds, and despite the police, prosecution, defence and judge having no doubt that what I painted onto the 66 Million pound painting was a ‘pound sign’, most of the journalists who reported on the case seemed to think that I had painted a ‘Z’ onto the painting. Eventually I was sentenced to 12 weeks in prison, but I was released after having served half of the sentence.

"I have learned, after numerous years of naked protesting, that the media often don’t report the facts truthfully, thus it now doesn’t surprise me that journalists seemed to think I had painted a ‘Z’, when in actual fact I had clearly painted a pound sign. Perhaps people are too busy or don’t have enough room for the truth, therefore bearing this in mind, I will only briefly allude to my reasoning behind why I painted the pound sign onto the Rembrandt, and I will leave the full reasons for a Book that I am writing.

"The naked protest where I painted the pound sign on Rembrandt was done in an attempt to highlight the inhumanity of materialism. The inhuman materialism of art is the same inhumanity that criminalises the human form. This inhumanity of our civilisation is such that: material representations of spirituality are allowed in art (representations of the naked body), whereas actual spirituality is not allowed in real life. By ‘spiritual’ I mean spirit, the human spirit, our essential nature, our human nature, our true visual identity, our humanity, naked as the day you were born. Not all artworks portray nakedness, but I believe that, in a similar way to how psychoanalysts see an abstraction of the sexual desire in Leonardo’s artworks, all art portrays a degraded abstraction of our humanity.

"There have been many naked protests by The Freedom To Be Yourself, which attempt to stop the unjust prohibition of the naked body in public, and the only other art related protest was in March 2001 where I put aside my criticisms of art to join fellow protesters getting naked at Tierney Gearon’s exhibition (‘I am camera’), so that we could show support for her photos of naked children, which we also felt were very decent and clearly not pornographic. It appears that art is worth more than humanity, and I say this because while the restored Rembrandt painting“damaged” to the sum of £500 pounds was sitting pretty in the Gallery, I was suffering in a prison cell for the “crime” of being human!"[3]

 

[1] Letter From Vincent Bethell to Damien Frost.
Vincent Bethell
THE FREEDOM TO BE YOURSELF
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopsegregation/
16TH December 2002

[2] Nothing to lose but our clothes
Julia Hartley-Brewer, Guardian, Friday October 15, 1999

[3] Letter From Vincent Bethell to Damien Frost.
Is art worth more than humanity?
Vincent Bethell, 12TH December 2002

The Freedom to Be Yourself
Vincent Bethell's website.

Pop fans feel festival heat
BBC News, Friday, June 25, 1999
An article on Glastonbury '99 which features a great photo and small feature on Bethell.

Nude protesters scale new heights
BBC News, Wednesday, July 28, 1999
Article on one of Bethells Protests.

Freedom of Expression: Walking Around Coventry
Sarah Lyall, The New York Times, March 13, 2001
Entertaining article featuring an interview with Bethell.

Naked truth
The Guardian , Friday January 5, 2001
A letter by one of Bethell'sco accused Russell Higgs from
Brixton prison which contains the great quote in reference to being called a naturist, nudist, streaker, or exhibitionist -"Labels are for clothes".

Vincent Bethel
An article on Bethell from a naturists perspective.

Creative Public Expression
A page linking to various Bethell articles and other nudist campainers.

Related News - Vincent Bethell
A page from a UK streakers site with some short articles on some of Bethells exploits. Includes a great photo of Bethell being chased by the fuzz.

Vincent, where's your trousers?
Vincent Bethell in the Evening Standard
Features a classic photo of Bethell naked (naturally) up a lamp post.

 

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