The German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, last night condemned Russia’s “war against Ukraine’s culture” at the official opening of an exhibition of European paintings evacuated to Berlin from the Odesa Museum of Western and Eastern Art.
The show, funded by the German government, unites the Odesa works from the 15th to the 20th centuries—by artists including Frans Hals, Cornelis de Heem, Bernardo Strozzi and Francesco Granacci—with paintings from the Gemäldegalerie’s collection. Many of the Odesa paintings were shipped to Berlin without frames and have been given simple wooden frames for the exhibition.
“Odesa’s beautiful old town, where the Museum of Western and Eastern Art is situated, has been attacked by missiles time and again,” Steinmeier said in his speech at the opening. “In countless Ukrainian towns and cities, listed buildings continue to be damaged, cultural institutions destroyed and works of art stolen. The attacks against museums, theatres, operas and libraries are intended to wipe out Ukraine’s cultural memory.”
Exhibition admission is free for Ukrainians, and the exhibition texts and catalogue are available in Ukrainian
Exhibition view, Gemäldegalerie 2024, © National Museums in Berlin / David von Becker
Founded in 1923, the Odesa Museum of Western and Eastern Art is home to an extensive collection with a focus on European paintings, sculptures, prints and applied art from the Renaissance to the 20th century. Shortly after the Russian invasion on 24 February 2022, the most important paintings were moved to an emergency storage facility in Ukraine.
But fearing that the facility would not protect the works from mould, the Ukrainian culture minister, Mykola Tochytskyi, asked the Berlin museums for help, Steinmeier said. In September 2023, 74 works were brought to Berlin and treated by conservators at the Gemäldegalerie before the exhibition, which runs until 22 June. The exhibition “emphasises that the acutely endangered museums in Ukraine and their collections are as much part of European culture as they are part of Ukrainian identity,” the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which oversees the Gemäldegalerie, said in a statement.
Restorers Anja Lindner-Michael and Thuja Seidel unpacking the works rescued works when they arrived in Berlin in September 2023
© Sabine Lata
Admission to From Odesa to Berlin. European Painting from the 16th to the 19th Century is free of charge for Ukrainians. The exhibition texts and catalogue are in Ukrainian, as well as German and English. From October, the show will be on view at the Kurpfälzisches Museum in Heidelberg.
“Although art cannot literally deter the enemy, it undoubtedly has another powerful force,” Tochytskyi said in a press release issued by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. “The victory is not something hypothetical. It has already happened and happens every day.”
The historic centre of Odesa was named a Unesco world heritage site in January 2023. In November last year, Unesco condemned a large-scale Russian attack on the site and reported damage to around 20 buildings, including historical and religious structures.
“I hope that this exhibition will be seen by many people from Germany, Europe and around the world,” Steinmeier said. “I hope that Ukrainians who have found refuge here in Germany will find a piece of home in the paintings.”
Above all, he said, he hopes the “paintings can be returned soon to where they belong: to the Museum of Western and Eastern Art in Odesa, in a free and independent Ukraine in which nobody has to fear bombs or missiles.”
