Amsterdam's Hermitage museum renamed over Russia link

Amsterdam's Hermitage museum said Monday it will change its name, a year after severing ties with the Saint Petersburg version over Russia's war in Ukraine.

The museum in the Dutch capital will be called the H'ART Museum from September, in what it called a "new beginning".

It also announced partnerships with the British Museum in London, the Pompidou center in Paris and Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington so that "world-famous art collections come to Amsterdam."

"It is an exciting new step," museum director Annabelle Birnie said in a statement, describing the changes as "contemporary and future-proof".

The statement did not mention Russia.

The Amsterdam Hermitage opened in 2009 as a venue for the Saint Petersburg-based Hermitage Museum to show parts of its huge collection for exhibition.

Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president at the time who has become increasingly hawkish over Ukraine, attended the opening.

But the Amsterdam branch severed ties with the Russian museum in March 2022, weeks after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, saying the link was "no longer tenable."

Most of its collection has been closed to the public since then.

Its first major exhibition under the new name will feature Russian-born painter Wassily Kandinsky, in a partnership with the Pompidou center, in mid-2024.

It will then stage an exhibition of 17 Rembrandt paintings the following year to mark the 750th anniversary of the city of Amsterdam.



AFP