Giant glacier painting disappears from Argentina’s presidential palace after new law passes loosening protections for these icy regions

Argentina’s government removed Helmut Ditsch’s monumental photorealist painting The Triumph of Nature (2006), depicting the Perito Moreno Glacier, from the Casa Rosada presidential palace shortly before Congress approved a 9 April amendment loosening protections in the country’s glacier law to facilitate mining in glacial regions. The 1.3 m by 4 m work had been on loan to the government and displayed since 2012, but officials said it was taken down for “maintenance reasons” related to “structural damage,” without further details. Ditsch said he received no official notification and has contacted lawyers after learning of the removal through the news, adding that the timing made him think of the glacier-law debate. A 1948 copy portrait of Juan Domingo and Evita Perón by Numa Ayrinhac was removed from the same room the same day, also attributed by the government to “maintenance.”

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