The Metropolitan Museum renamed Degas’ painting “Russian Dancers” to “Dancers in Ukrainian Dress”
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has changed the name of the painting by the French impressionist Edgar Degas “Russian Dancers” to “Dancers in Ukrainian Dress”. Art historian and journalist Oksana Semenik announced this on her Facebook page. “Finally, Metropolitan read a hundred of my letters, heard us, and Degas dancers in Ukrainian dress became not Russian Dancers, as it was just a few days ago (!), but Dancers in Ukrainian Dress,” she wrote. Semenik added that she is “not very happy with the name, because they could have just called it Ukrainian Dancers, but this is already a small victory.” “I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the first time in December 2022, just before returning to Ukraine from my internship at the Zimerly Museum (New Jersey). There I saw this work, which was signed as “Russian Dancers”. I remembered the story from a museum in London, and I thought that the Met had also changed its name,” Semenik told UP.Zhyttia. Also, the journalist says, she saw the works of Ilya Repin and Arkhip Kuindzhi, who are called Russian artists, in the permanent exhibition. “I made a post about it on my Twitter Ukrainian Art History and tagged Mat. There was no reaction,” Semenyk added. So she decided to take a different route: using the feedback form on the museum’s website and writing letters to various departments at the Met. “I wrote about Ukrainian artists, these Degas dancers, and Picasso’s wife Olga Khoholova (she has already been corrected that she is Ukrainian). Later, I once again sent to this feedback form (they are active, so I encourage everyone to use them!) information about that there is a study, that it was a Ukrainian troupe. About a month later, they replied to me that they were considering it. But the answer was standard, which had already been sent to me before that. Therefore, in response, I sent another email,” the journalist says, adding that in once again sent him information about the gallery in London. “And, of course, calling Ukrainians Russians during the genocide is simply insulting and disrespectful,” Semenyk said. This is what the signature of a Degas painting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in December 2022 looked like. UP.Kulture collage from Oksana Semenyk’s photo. She says that she is currently in similar communication with other cultural institutions: MoMA, Smithsonian, Philadelphia and Brooklyn museums. Some museums are reacting and making changes regarding Ukrainian artists: “The Smithsonian responded to me and corrected that Helena Gerardia was born in Dnipro, Ukraine, and not in Yekaterinoslav, Russia. …The Jewish Museum in New York also reacted and corrected the birthplaces of Ukrainian artists , such as Israel Litvak or Abram Manevich”. Last March, almost a month after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the National Gallery in London renamed Degas’ painting “Russian Dancers” to “Ukrainian Dancers.” At the time, Ukrainian artist Mariam Nayem said she sent letters to the London gallery, as well as the Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which hold Degas’ paintings of dancers in Ukrainian national costumes, but called Russian Dancers. Edgar Degas “Ukrainian Dancers”. Screenshot from the website of the National Gallery in London The National Gallery in London became the first institution to change the name of a Degas painting. “Thank you for your letter to the National Gallery, which we received on 14 March. We have updated the title to accurately reflect the subject of the image,” Mariam Nayem replied there in 2022. It took almost a year for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to change its name. Read also: How Ukrainian culture emerges from the shadow of the Russian Empire: the creative director of the Ukrainian Institute explains
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