Skip to main content

91-year-old woman fills out crossword that turns out to be $116k artwork in German museum

Posted , updated 
A crossword puzzle partially filled out.
Arthur Koepcke's work was based on a crossword puzzle like this one.(Flickr: Ben Watkin; file photo)

A 91-year-old woman reportedly used a ballpoint pen to fill in the blank spaces on a $116,000 crossword artwork on display in a German museum.

The work, by avant garde Danish artist Arthur Koepcke was on loan to the Neues Museum in Nuremberg from a private collector, the BBC reported.

The woman, who was visiting the museum with a group of seniors, reportedly told police she was following instructions on a sign next to the artwork, which read: "Insert words".

"The lady told us she had taken the notes as an invitation to complete the crossword," a police spokesman told UK paper The Telegraph.

Museum director Eva Krause said she believed the damage could be easily repaired.

"We do realise that the old lady didn't mean any harm," Ms Krause told The Telegraph.

She said the museum had to make a criminal complaint for insurance reasons.

"We will let the lady know that the collector took the damage to the work in good humour, so she doesn't have a sleepless night," she added.

The Reading-Work-Piece is one of a series of artworks completed by Koepcke in the mid-1960s, according to a post on the National Gallery of Denmark's website written by senior research curator Marianne Torp.

Ms Torp said Koepcke's works included picture puzzles, crosswords and perception psychology tests, painted in oil on canvas and featuring cuttings from newspapers and magazines.

"With his reading and training pieces, the artist wished to increase the spectators' awareness of the systems, actions and rituals that we persist in and carry out every day without reflecting on them," Ms Torp wrote.

Artworks damaged by patrons

It wasn't the first time an artwork has been damaged by hapless viewers.

In June, a young Chinese boy accidentally knocked over a $20,000 Lego sculpture, which had taken three days and nights to put together, just an hour after it was put on display.

The Lego sculpture knocked over by a child
The sculpture originally depicted Nick Wilde, a character from Disney's Zootopia.(Weibo)

Late last year, an artwork in an Italian museum resembling the aftermath of a large party was binned after cleaners mistook it for actual rubbish.

Art installation depicting aftermath of a party
The artwork was restored by the museum.(Supplied: Museion Bozen/Bolzano)

Also in 2015, a 12-year-old punched a hole in a $2 million Italian oil painting after he tripped and fell into the piece at an exhibition in Taiwan.

Doubts were later raised about the painting's authenticity.

Boy trips, puts fist through $2 million Italian painting

In 2012, an elderly parishioner made international headlines when she attempted to restore a fresco of Jesus Christ in a Spanish church.

The painting, Elias Garcia Martinez's Ecce Homo, became an international phenomenon as a result of the botched restoration.

Tourist photographs botched Spanish fresco
Ecce Homo became a tourist drawcard.(AFP: Cesar Manso)
Posted , updated