Biography
Timothy Martin, an architect from North Carolina with the climate group Declare Emergency, smeared red and black paint on the protective case and base of the Edgar Degas sculpture "Little Dancer Aged Fourteen" at the National Gallery of Art on April 27, 2023 (with co-defendant Joanna Smith) to demand a presidential climate-emergency declaration; the sculpture itself was unharmed. A federal jury convicted him in April 2025 of conspiracy against the United States and injuring a National Gallery exhibit, and on October 27, 2025 he was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison, among the harshest U.S. sentences for a nonviolent climate protest.
The Bureau of Prisons records his release on May 21, 2026, completing the 18-month sentence through a Raleigh residential-reentry placement.
