The former security guard of the Yeltsin Center, who changed the avant-garde painting out of boredom by drawing eyes on the figures of the painting, was sentenced to “corrective” labor and forced treatment in a psychiatric hospital, reports Lenta.

The painting was damaged by a security guard Photo: Twitter

A Russian court sentenced 63-year-old Oleksandr Vasiliev to 180 hours of correctional labor and sent him to forced treatment. He was not in the hall when the court decision was announced.

Painted between 1932 and 1934, the artist Anna Leporskaya’s painting “Three Figures” was exhibited at an exhibition of abstract art at the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Center in the city of Yekaterinburg, when a guard drew eyes with a pen on the figures.

The painting was insured for 75 million rubles (£740,000). The work was removed from the exhibition and returned to the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, which lent the painting.

How the guard justified the reworking of the painting

Vasiliev later apologized for his actions and sent 5,000 rubles to the Tretyakov Gallery. Restoration experts of the Moscow Gallery estimated that the restoration work will cost 250,000 rubles.

The security guard said that he painted the eyes at the request of students who visited the Yekaterinburg art exhibition.

“16-17-year-olds stood and discussed why there are no eyes, mouth, or beauty! There were girls in the group and they told me: “Draw your eyes, you work here.”

The security guard said that he asked the students if this was their job, to which they answered in the affirmative. “They gave me a pen, I drew the eyes. I thought it was just their children’s drawings!” the man admitted.

Earlier, the curator of the exhibition, Anna Resetkina, reported that the man’s motives “are unknown, but the administration believes that it is because he was not himself.”

Oleksandr Vasiliev is a veteran of the First Chechen War, who was awarded the “For Courage” medal after being seriously wounded in 1995. Before working at the Yeltsin Center, he worked as a security guard at a bank that later closed.

Then he worked for several security companies.