Cultural institutions rethink Russian connections

The cultural boycott of Russia is extending across Europe as more institutions sever ties with the country or rethink how the Russian and Ukrainian cultures are represented in their collections.

London’s National Gallery has renamed a drawing by Edgar Degas following calls on social media to address the mislabelling of Ukrainian cultural heritage.

Thought to have been drawn by Degas around 1899, the pastel's name has been changed from Russian Dancers to Ukrainian Dancers. The drawing depicts dancers in traditional folk dress with ribbons of blue and yellow – Ukraine’s national colours – in their hair.

A spokesperson for the National Gallery said: “The title of this painting has been an ongoing point of discussion for many years and is covered in scholarly literature; however there has been increased focus on it over the past month due to the current situation so therefore we felt it was an appropriate moment to update the painting’s title to better reflect the subject of the painting.”

In the Netherlands, Hermitage Amsterdam, a satellite of the State Hermitage Museum, is rebranding as Dutch Heritage Amsterdam. The privately funded venue, which opened in 2009, will now display popular works of Dutch art.

The UK’s Hermitage Foundation, a charitable body set up to support and promote the Russian museum, suspended its fundraising activities indefinitely last month.

Meanwhile, three shipments of art with an insurance value of €42m have been detained in Finland while en route to Russia due to a suspected violation of sanctions. The paintings and sculptures were being returned to Russian museums from France and Italy when they were impounded at the start of April, leading the Finnish Ambassador to be summoned to the Russian foreign ministry.

The Finnish foreign minister reportedly has since indicated that the paintings will be returned to Russia. Moscow’s State Hermitage Museum has denied the items were confiscated, saying they were “detained as part of the normal customs investigation procedure”.

An art gallery in Seoul, South Korea, has reportedly refused to return 75 artworks that are on loan from four Russian institutions, following a request to hand the items back early due to escalating global tensions. The Sejong Center For Performance Arts said it plans to keep the works for the agreed duration of the exhibition.

According to an update from Unesco last week, at least 53 historic sites, religious sites and museums are confirmed to have sustained damage during the war in Ukraine so far.

A number of Ukrainian museums are confirmed to have been destroyed, including Club-8 Bit – a retro computer museum – and Kuindzhi Art Museum, both in the besieged city of Mariupol, and the Ivankiv Historical and Local History Museum outside Kyiv.

Seen in The Art Newspaper, The Guardian, Euronews and Metro