A mural honoring Aretha Franklin was vandalized in Detroit on Saturday, The Detroit Free Press reports.
Richard Wilson, the London-based artist who drew the mural depicting a Franklin album cover, said he had to fix up the piece in the city’s Eastern Market after someone poured paint on his work.
“I finished it yesterday evening … all happy,” he said. “I came back this morning just to tidy up a bit, check if there’s anything I missed or anything.”
Wilson said he spent 12 days working on the piece for the Murals in the Market public art event.
Richard Wilson, a London-based artist in Detroit for #MuralsInTheMarket, is fixing up his mural featuring Aretha Franklin and other famous Detroit records after it was splattered by paint left in a cherry picker and inadvertently vandalized overnight. @freep pic.twitter.com/qxGwKYBNE1
— Aleanna Siacon (@AleannaSiacon) September 29, 2018
“It’s like they had a paint party here, and it’s just splattered all over the place,” Wilson said.
The Queen of Soul died on Aug. 16 after a battle with pancreatic cancer.
