Picasso vandal surrenders to authorities [Video]

The man who has admitted to defacing Pablo Picasso’s painting “Woman in a Red Armchair” at the Menil Collection in Houston last year is in custody this week after surrendering to authorities near the U.S.-Mexico border.

Uriel Landeros had been on the lam for six months since he spray-painted the work of art with stenciled images of a bullfighter, a bull and the Spanish word “conquista,” or conquest. A witness captured what appeared to be the incident on camera and the video was uploaded to YouTube.

The Menil is one of the top art museums in the country and offers free admission to all visitors. The museum has since restored the painting.

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Landeros surrendered to authorities Tuesday at a point on the border near the town of McAllen, Texas, according to the Associated Press.

The vandal received his own gallery show last year titled “Houston, We Have a Problem.” Landeros did not attend, as he was a fugitive.

Landeros has told reporters that his action in June was meant to be an act of defiance against social injustice.

In October, a Mark Rothko painting was vandalized at London’s Tate Modern gallery. The vandal, a Polish man known as Wlodzimierz Umaniec, was eventually caught and sentenced to two years in jail.

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