Editor’s Note: The above video contains multiple expletives.

HOUSTON — Police have video recordings to help them search for a man who spray-painted Pablo Picasso’s “Woman in a Red Armchair” at a Houston art museum.

Officials say the vandalism happened Wednesday afternoon at the Menil Collection, where the 1929 painting is one of nine Picassos. Menil spokesman Vance Muse tells the Houston Chronicle that museum security officers detected the vandalism almost immediately, when the paint was barely dry. Chief conservator Brad Epley began repair work immediately, and Muse says the painting has “an excellent prognosis.”

The vandal fled and hasn’t been arrested. However, police have security video — along with a cellphone video taken by a witness and posted on YouTube.

The iPhone footage, taken by a museum-goer on Wednesday, shows a young man walk up to the famous painting in the Menil Collection, Houston, and spray-paint a bull in its centre before fleeing the scene.

Underneath the bull, which is painted in gold, the graffiti artist sprayed the word ‘Conquista’ which means ‘Conquest’ or ‘Conquer’ in Spanish.

Picasso paintings rank among the most expensive in the world. Garçon à la pipe sold for US$104 million in May 2004, establishing a new price record.

Dora Maar au Chat sold for US$95.2 million in 2006.

And in May 2010, Nude, Green Leaves and Bust was sold for $106.5 million, making it the most expensive paintaing ever sold at auction at the time of the sale. It has since been surpassed by Edvard Munch’s The Scream.