Cecilia Giménez with her restoration of "Ecce Homo" in 2013 (photo by Fabián Simón ARCHDC/Alamy) Cecilia Giménez, an amateur Spanish artist most widely known for her errant restoration of a 20th-century fresco that became a viral tourist attraction, has died at the age of 94. Eduardo Arilla, the mayor of the northeastern Spanish town of Borja, confirmed her passing to the local publication yesterday, December 29. Giménez had been living in a nursing home in Borja, according to the publication.
Many remember the Ecce Homo painting that decorates one of its walls not for the original 19th-century brushstrokes, but for the disastrous restoration carried out by a woman then just over 80 years old who acted spontaneously and without asking anyone's permission, though with good intentions. The work of Cecilia Gimenez, who passed away this Monday at the age of 94, was not only catastrophic, blurry, and unrecognizable, but also became an object of ridicule.
