Spanish statue draws 'Potato Head' comparisons after failed restoration

  • 21 Nov - 27 Nov, 2020
  • Mag The Weekly
  • Mag Files

Yet another attempted art restoration has gone awry in Spain, and this time, people think the new and certainly not improved work looks a lot like a potato head. Spanish artist Antonio Guzmán Capel brought the latest restoration fail to light last week when he shared photos of it on Facebook. “[It] looks like a cartoon character,” Capel wrote of the 1923 statue, which sits atop a bank on a main street in the city of Palencia. As seen in the photos, what was once the carefully crafted, smiling face of a woman now appears to be an unstructured oval with melty, misshapen indents for eyes, a lump for a nose and bizarrely puckered pair of lips. Many on social media have compared it to the Mr Potato Head toy. Capel told CNN that he doesn’t know who did the work on the statue, but that his photos have been picked up worldwide, and crowds have begun flocking to see the ugly mug with their own eyes. The Spanish Professional Association of Restorers and Conservators wrote on Twitter that the work was not done by a professional, and should not be considered a restoration.

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