Cops: Art attacker strikes again at DC museum

WASHINGTON - A woman who attacked a painting at Washington's National Gallery of Art earlier this year has struck again, police say, this time lashing out against a Henri Matisse painting at the museum.

Susan Burns of Alexandria, Va., was arrested Aug. 5 after police say she walked over to Matisse's 1919 painting "The Plumed Hat," and slammed the painting repeatedly against a wall, damaging its frame but not the $2.5 million painting.

The 53-year-old Burns was arrested in April for attacking an $80 million Paul Gauguin painting called "Two Tahitian Women." As a condition of her release she promised she would stay away from all museums and art galleries in Washington.

In the latest incident she was charged with unlawful entry and brought to the city's mental health facility.

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In the April incident, Burns was accused of pounding on Gauguin's painting and trying to rip it from a wall, telling police the post-Impressionist artist was evil and the painting should be burned, court documents show.

The picture was on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York for an exhibit that ended in June. The painting depicts two women standing next to each other, one with both breasts exposed and the other with one breast showing.

According to charging documents, an investigator told Burns her rights and asked why she had tried to remove the painting.

"I feel that Gauguin is evil. He has nudity and is bad for the children. He has two women in the painting and it's very homosexual. I was trying to remove it. I think it should be burned," according to the documents.

Burns also said: "I am from the American CIA and I have a radio in my head. I am going to kill you."

The painting was protected by a transparent plastic shield. It was the first documented case of someone trying to deface a painting at the gallery since the 1970s, spokeswoman Deborah Ziska said. She said the gallery's security procedures worked.

Gauguin (1848-1903), a Frenchman, first traveled to Tahiti in 1891 and was known for his erotic portraits of local women and for his moral failings -- including sexual relationships with his underage models.

Burns has been arrested several times. She served six months in jail after a 2006 conviction for assault and battery on a police officer. In 2002, she was convicted of misdemeanor trespassing.

She has also been charged with disorderly conduct, obstruction of justice, vandalism and a separate assault on a police officer, but prosecutors declined to pursue those cases, Virginia court records show.