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| Black on Maroon - Mark Rothko |
Polish national Wlodzimierz Umaniec was yesterday jailed for two years for defacing Mark Rothko's 'Black on Maroon,' worth tens of millions of pounds, at the Tate Modern. On October 7th gallery visitors saw the man casually walk up to the painting and scrawl 'Vladimir Umanets, 12, A Potential Piece of Yellowism' before fleeing the gallery. Mr Umaniec pleaded guilty but insisted he was not a vandal as he had added to the work's value?!
The Tate have said the damage was much worse that initially feared and could take up to 20 months to restore and cost about £200,000.
Mr Umaniec co-founded the bizarre artistic movement 'Yellowism.' What on earth is that I hear you ask, well you may well ask, its described as 'neither art, nor anti-art,' something I can't quite make sense of, all it makes me think of is Coldplay.
Black on Maroon was donated to the Tate in 1969 by Rothko himself. Earlier this year one of his works sold for £53.8m, the highest price paid for a piece of post-War art at auction.
