The Hermitage Museum in Amsterdam once had access to the three million objects in the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. But he severed all ties with Russia when the country invaded Ukraine and has now announced a new name and new leadership.
From September, the museum on the Amstel River will be known as H’ART and will work in partnership with the British Museum, the Center Pompidou in Paris and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, with access to collections from over 160 million objects.
“Our program will be engaging and thematic, from major art exhibitions to intimate presentations of works by contemporary artists,” said Annabelle Birnie, director of the Hermitage Amsterdam, at a press conference on Monday.
The museum has scheduled a major Kandinsky exhibition with the Center Pompidou in mid-2024, a British Museum exhibition titled female power in 2026 and already has a video installation from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, called Clubbingby Martine Gutierrez to discover in a dedicated room.
Another highlight will be an exhibition of Rembrandt from the Leiden Collection, a private art collection, in Amsterdam’s 750th anniversary year, which it will celebrate in 2025. Thomas S. Kaplan, the philanthropist and collector of ‘art, is currently lending works from this collection. for the show current exhibition Hermitage Amsterdam Rembrandt and his contemporaries.
As an independent museum, the Hermitage Amsterdam suffered particularly during the pandemic—while he was ineligible for government support—and launched his own fundraising campaign. Birnie acknowledged that since his break with Russia, despite loaning works from other museums and moving the Amsterdam museum to a new wing, times have been difficult.
“We open the windows of the world…to show that art connects,” she said. “We look beyond borders in collaborations with world-renowned museums to introduce our visitors to the finest art of all ages that opens our eyes with its themes and stories, touches our hearts and shows us our world of yesterday, today and tomorrow. We seek dialogue.
