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Flagburning

Blasphemy

     destruction

This page highlights recent destruction of cultural heritage as background to comments in the preceding pages. It also notes destruction of other cultural property, of relevance to moral rights regimes.

     removal

A perspective on destruction by states and para-state groups is provided through incidents involving disgruntled commissioners or custodians of art works and the insane.

One example is the 1955 cause celebre in the UK, with destruction by Winston Churchill's family (or an associate) of a portrait by Graham Sutherland. He had been commissioned by the s portrait of Winston Churchill. In 1954, Sutherland was one of the UK Parliament in 1954 to undertake an 80th birthday portrait of the former Prime Minister. Churchill apparently loathed the painting, which disappeared after initial public display and is variously reported to have been slashed by the family or even burnt on a bonfire. Sutherland mildly characterised it as "an act of vandalism"; critics noted the precedent of surreptitious destruction of Charles Sims' official portrait of King George V.

Some custodians, having read widely but not wisely, kill the things they love. Controversial art historian and ArtWatch founder James Beck lamented that

Art historians stay silent and are willing to let the sacred objects they study all their lives go down the drain. I don't forgive them for that. We understand what can be lost when the Taliban bombed those 2,000-year-old Buddha statues in Afghanistan, but we've been doing the same thing for 30 years in restoration laboratories.

In 2002 it was revealed that Westminster city council had 'cleaned' 1870s stone busts of Newton, Hogarth, Reynolds and Hunter with a corrosive so powerful that the sculptures are "barely recognisable". It considered replacing them with modern art, only to be told that as they are listed they must stay in situ.

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