In a move that makes the defacing of Brett Murray’s painting look quite low-key, an alleged young Mexican-American artist has stencilled over Pablo Picasso’s “Woman in a Red Armchair” at a Houston art museum.

Nobody yet seems to know why this man defaced the painting, but he is now on the run from the Houston police. The vandalism was noticed right away and restoration work began almost immediately. The museum says that the prognosis for the painting is excellent and should be restored fully soon.

What a douche move. The witness who shot the cellphone video told journalists that the man identified himself as an up-and-coming Mexican-American artist looking to honor Picasso’s work. Apart from not understanding what the word honour means, the guy’s stencil is pretty crappy considering the painting he was ‘honouring’ and he calls himself an artist.

This is not the first time a Picasso has been defaced, in 1974 Tony Shafrazi – now a gallery owner in New York –  spray-painted Picasso’s painting Guernica, which hung in the Museum of Modern Art, with the words “KILL LIES ALL”. It is understood that Shafrazi had a political motive. When the ‘young artist’ gets caught I’m sure we’ll hear some story about bringing art into the mainstream, or some other faulty argument.

[Source: Chron.com, Wikipedia]