Foreign News

Child damages €50m Rothko painting in Dutch museum

Published

10 months ago

2025/04/29

Priyan

A child has damaged a painting worth millions of pounds by the American artist Mark Rothko at a museum in Rotterdam.

A spokesperson for the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen said it was considering the “next steps” for the treatment of Rothko’s Grey, Orange on Maroon, No. 8.

The damage occurred during an “unguarded moment”, a museum spokesperson told the Dutch media outlet Algemeen Dagblad (AD) last week.

A spokesperson for the museum told the BBC the damage was “superficial”, adding: “Small scratches are visible in the unvarnished paint layer in the lower part of the painting”.

The abstract painting is estimated to be worth up to €50m (£42.5m), according to newspaper AD.

“Conservation expertise has been sought in the Netherlands and abroad. We are currently researching the next steps for the treatment of the painting”, the museum spokesperson told the BBC.

“We expect that the work will be able to be shown again in the future,” they added.

Sophie McAloone, the conservation manager at the Fine Art Restoration Company, said that “modern unvarnished” paintings like Rothko’s Grey, Orange on Maroon, No. 8 are “particularly susceptible to damage”.

This is “owing to a combination of their complex modern materials, lack of a traditional coating layer, and intensity of flat colour fields, which make even the smallest areas of damage instantly perceptible,” she said.

“In this case, scratching of the upper paint layers can have a significant impact on the viewing experience of the piece,” Ms McAloone said.

The Rothko painting was hanging in the museum’s Depot – a publicly accessible storage facility beside the main museum – as part of an exhibition displaying a selection of “public favourites” from the gallery’s collection.

Jonny Helm, a marketing manager at the art restoration service Plowden & Smith, said the incident had implications for UK institutions such as V&A East and the British Museum, which are considering “opening up the display of things that would otherwise be obscured in archives.”

“How will this event affect other UK institutions who are opening up their archives in the same way?” Mr Helm said.

Restoring a Rothko painting is a difficult task because “Rothko’s mixture of pigments and resins and glues were quite complex”, Mr Helm said.

He said the fact the painting is unvarnished – meaning it is “open to the environment” – will pose an additional challenge to conservators.

Conservators working to restore the painting will now likely be in the process of documenting the extent of the damage and researching “historic successful treatments” of Rothko paintings.

“Rothko works seem to have terrible luck – this isn’t the first damaged Rothko we’ve heard about,” Mr Helm said.

Rothko’s 1958 work, Black on Maroon, was deliberately vandalised by Wlodzimier Umanjec at London’s Tate Modern gallery in October 2012. Umaniec was sent to prison for two years and subsequently apologised for his actions.

During his trial, prosecuting barrister Gregor McKinley said the cost of repairing the work would be about £200,000. It took conservators 18 months to repair the painting.

Getty Images A woman in a pink dress looks at Mark Rothko's painting Black On Maroon 1958, a painting of two maroon strips on a black background, after it went back on display at Tate Modern gallery — *Mark Rothko’s 1958 painting Black On Maroon went back on display 18 months after it was vandalised [BBC]*

Rachel Myrtle, Head of Specie and Fine Arts at Aon, a company that offers insurance broking to its clients, said fine art insurance policies typically cover “all risks associated with physical loss and damage to artwork”.

This includes “accidental damage caused by children or visitors, albeit with certain exclusions”, she said.

She said that when an artwork is damaged, a gallery’s insurer will appoint a specialist fine art loss adjuster to visit the museum.

The loss adjustor typically “reviews the damage to the artwork, examines any CCTV footage to determine the exact cause of the loss, and assesses conservation options”, Ms Myrtle said.

The museum did not comment on who will be held liable for the damage to the 1960 painting, which the gallery reportedly bought in the 1970s.

The Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen has previously billed visitors who have caused damage to artworks on display.

In 2011, the museum asked an unsuspecting tourist who stepped on Wim T. Schippers’ peanut butter floor artwork, called Pindakaasvloer, to pay for repairs to the work. Sharon Cohen, a spokesperson for the museum at the time, wax quoted by AD as saying “It is normal procedure for people to pay if they damage art.”

The Rothko painting is described by the museum as an example of colour field painting, a term used to describe art characterised by large blocks of flat, solid colour spread across a canvas.

Rothko’s Grey, Orange on Maroon, No. 8 painting is one of several works of modern art that have been damaged in the Netherlands in recent years.

In November 2024, multiple screen prints by the US pop artist Andy Warhol were damaged by thieves during an attempted robbery of the MPV art gallery in the town of Oisterwijk.

In another incident, a Dutch town hall admitted it most likely disposed of 46 artworks by accident – including an Andy Warhol print of the former Dutch queen – during renovation works last year.

Museums have different policies when responding to damage caused by children.

In August last year, a four year old boy accidentally smashed a 3,500 year old jar into pieces at the Hecht Museum in Israel. At the time, Hecht Museum worker Lihi Laszlo told the BBC the museum would not treat the incident “with severity” because “the jar was accidentally damaged by a young child”.

The family were invited back to the exhibition for an organised tour shortly after the incident occurred.

***[BBC]***

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Foreign News

Pilot praised after crash-landing faulty Somali passenger plane on seashore

Published

3 hours ago

2026/02/11

Priyan

The plane was on its way to Puntland before the pilot requested a return to Mogadishu [BBC]

An airline in Somalia has praised one of its pilots after he crash-landed his passenger plane, which had suffered a technical fault, on the shoreline next to the capital’s international airport with all 55 on board surviving.

Starsky Aviation said the pilot’s quick thinking was crucial in saving the 50 passengers and five crew.

The crew of the aircraft, a Fokker 50, reported a problem shortly after take off from Mogadishu on Tuesday morning and requested that the plane return, Somalia’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said.

It then touched down but failed to stop on the runway, overshooting the tarmac before coming to rest in shallow water, the CAA’s director Ahmed Macalin Hassan said.

It is not clear yet exactly what the issue was.

Footage posted on X appeared to show passengers leaving the aircraft and walking away from the wreckage on the shore of the Indian Ocean. No serious injuries have been reported.

The African Union’s mission in Somalia said UN and AU troops were “swiftly deployed” to help with rescue efforts. Somalia’s transport minister was also at the scene, its post on X added.

“We are relieved to confirm that all passengers and crew are safe. Investigations are under way to establish what caused the technical issue that led to the emergency landing,” Starsky spokesman Hassan Mohamed Aden said.

“The pilot’s swift and calm decision-making played a decisive role in ensuring the safety of everyone on board, and we commend him for how he handled the situation,” he added.

[BBC]

Foreign News

Portugal elects Socialist Party’s Seguro as president in landslide

Published

2 days ago

2026/02/9

Priyan

Presidential candidate Antonio Jose Seguro, of the centre-left Socialist Party, waves to the crowd during a campaign rally ahead of the February 8 presidential election, in Lisbon, on February 5, 2026 [Aljazeera]

Antonio Jose Seguro of the centre-left Socialist Party has secured a landslide victory and a five-year term as Portugal’s president in a run-off vote, beating his far-right, anti-establishment rival, Andre Ventura, according to partial results.

With 95 percent of votes counted, 63-year-old Seguro has garnered 66 percent. Ventura trailed at 34 percent, still likely to secure a much stronger result than the 22.8 percent his anti-immigration Chega party achieved in last year’s general election. Ballots in large cities such as Lisbon and Porto are counted towards the end.

Two exit polls have placed Seguro in the 67-73 percent range, and Ventura at 27-33 percent.

A succession of storms in recent days has failed to deter voters, with turnout at about the same level as in the first round on January 18, even though three municipal councils in southern and central Portugal had to postpone voting by a week due to floods. The postponement affected some 37,000 registered voters, or about 0.3 percent of the total, and is unlikely to influence the overall result.

Portugal’s presidency is a largely ceremonial role, but it holds some key powers, including the ability to dissolve parliament under certain circumstances.

Ventura, 43, who had trailed Seguro in opinion polls, had argued that the government’s response to the fierce gales and floods was “useless” and called for the entire election to be postponed.

However, the authorities rejected the demand.

Seguro, during his last campaign rally on Friday, accused Ventura of “doing everything to keep the Portuguese from turning out to vote”.

Despite his loss on Sunday, Ventura, a charismatic former television sports commentator, can now boast increased support, reflecting the growing influence of the far right in Portugal and much of Europe. He is also the first extreme-right candidate to make it through to a run-off vote in Portugal.

Meanwhile, Seguro has cast himself as the candidate of a “modern and moderate” left, who can actively mediate to avert political crises and defend democratic values. He received backing from prominent conservatives after the first round amid concerns over what many see as Ventura’s populist, hardline tendencies.

But Prime Minister Luis Montenegro – whose minority centre-right government has to rely on support from either the Socialists or the far right to get legislation through parliament – declined to endorse either candidate in the second round.

While the role is largely ceremonial, the head of state has the power to dissolve parliament and call early elections.

The new president will succeed outgoing conservative Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa in early March.

[Aljazeera]

Foreign News

Washington Post chief executive steps down after mass lay-offs

Published

3 days ago

2026/02/8

Priyan

Will Lewis speaks to the staff and employees of the Washington Post in Washington, DC on November 06, 2023. [Cricinfo]

The chief executive of the Washington Post is stepping down, the newspaper has announced, days after overseeing mass lay-offs.

William Lewis said it was the right time to leave, saying in a message to staff that was shared online that “difficult decisions” had been made to ensure the paper’s future.

On Wednesday the newspaper announced it was cutting a third of its workforce, dramatically scaling back its coverage of sport and international news.

The decision was condemned by many journalists and prompted criticism of the Post’s billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos. Executive editor Matt Murray said the cuts would bring “stability”.

Jeff D’Onofrio, who joined as chief financial officer of the newspaper last year, will serve as acting publisher and CEO, the Post said as it announced Lewis’s departure.

A former Dow Jones chief executive and publisher of the Wall Street Journal, Lewis was appointed to the role at the Washington Post in 2023.

He has faced criticism from subscribers and employees as he tried to reverse financial losses at the daily.

Hundreds protested in front of the paper’s headquarters in Washington DC on Thursday after the mass lay offs, which included the paper’s entire Middle East staff and its Kyiv-based Ukraine correspondent.

Marty Baron, the Post’s executive editor until 2021, said the cuts ranked “among the darkest days in the history of one of the world’s greatest news organisations”.

The departure of Lewis marks the latest upheaval for the leading US newspaper, which has seen a series of staff cuts and controversial editorial decisions in recent years.