The Amsterdam Hermitage Museum will be renamed

The Amsterdam Hermitage Museum, which ended cooperation with the State Hermitage after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, announced on Monday the renaming and cooperation with new partners – the Smithsonian Museum of American Art in Washington, the Center Pompidou in Paris and the British Museum.
From September 1, the former branch of the Hermitage will be called the H’Art Museum and will exhibit works from the funds of its partners and organize joint exhibitions. Paintings by Wassily Kandinsky from the Pompidou Center collection will be presented at the first exhibition next year.

The Amsterdam Hermitage was opened in 2009 as an exhibition space for works of art stored in the Hermitage. In 14 years, 30 exhibitions were held, about a third of them were devoted to Russian history and culture. One of the last exhibitions was called “Jewelry! The splendor of the Russian court.” As Annabel Byrna said in an interview with the New York Times, with the start of the war in Ukraine, “the magic of Russia disappeared.” The last exhibition organized in partnership with the Hermitage, “Russian Avant-Garde – Revolution in Art”, was closed five weeks after opening in March of last year. “We felt that this was the only correct decision,” says Byrny.

The Amsterdam Hermitage Museum was more than an exhibition space. It served as a symbol of close relations between Russia and the Netherlands. In 2013, the exhibition “Peter the Great Inspired Tsar” was visited by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and President of Russia Vladimir Putin, who opened a commemorative plaque dedicated to the Year of Russia in the Netherlands and the Year of the Netherlands in Russia.