Police Searching for Man Who Vandalizes Priceless Picasso Painting

Houston (ANTARA/Xinhua-OANA) - Police in the U.S. state of Texas are searching for a man who vandalized a priceless Picasso painting at a Houston art museum, U.S. media reported Tuesday. The vandal was reportedly seen on a museum surveillance camera spray-painting Pablo Picasso's 1929 "Woman in a Red Armchair" in a room at the Menil Collection and then running off last week. The act was also captured by a bystander with a smartphone camera and later posted on YouTube, according to the newspaper The Houston Chronicle. Museum security officials discovered the damaged artwork almost immediately and rushed the painting, with the spray paint barely dry, to the museum' s on-site conservation lab, where the repair started, the Houston Chronicle said. The repair of the vandalized Picasso painting went very well and most of the damage had been fixed, museum officials was quoted as saying Tuesday. The vandalism was being investigated as a criminal case, Houston Police spokesman Victor Senties said. The vandalized painting is one of nine by Picasso owned by the Menil.(*)