A Berlin gallery has opened an exhibition of artworks from a museum in Ukraine that were evacuated to Germany in 2023 to spare them from Russian bombardment.
Some 60 works from the Odesa Museum of Western and Eastern Art went on public display at their temporary new home in the Gemäldegalerie in the German capital.
Germany was at Ukraine’s side “in defending your freedom and independence, in protecting your cultural heritage”, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said at the opening ceremony.
Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the director of the Odesa museum ordered the paintings to be taken down and stored for safekeeping.
The works from the collection in the Black Sea port city were initially hidden in western Ukraine before being transported to Berlin in the second half of 2023 to be restored.
The fact that the works were being displayed in simple wooden frames and not decorative ones was an indication of the exceptional circumstances of their journey, Steinmeier said.
“They are not loans as in a typical art exhibition,” he said.