Ukrainian paintings find safe haven in Switzerland

Some of the artwork on display in the 'Born in Ukraine' exhibition at Basel's Fine Art Museum Kunstmuseum Basel

Yuri Vakulenko, director of the Kyiv National Art Gallery, last year asked European museums if they would hold modified versions of two exhibitions that had already been held in Ukraine. Two Swiss museums, the Musee d’Art et d’Histoire in Geneva and the Kunstmuseum Basel, agreed.

“This was an idea that would allow our paintings to be in a safe place while allowing our gallery to continue to fight on the cultural front,” Vakulenko told Reuters from Kyiv on Thursday.

+ Read more: we visited “Born in Ukraine” in December

The museum in Geneva, which took in paintings from Madrid’s Prado Museum during the Spanish civil war in the 1930s, sent packing materials to ensure safe transport.

The Musee Rath, which hosts the Musee d’Art et d’Histoire’s temporary exhibitions, is now showing From Dusk to DawnExternal link, showcasing works by Ukrainian painters from the Kyiv gallery.

The crates in which the paintings were transported from Ukraine, weeks after the Kyiv gallery’s windows were shattered by the shock of a nearby shell, are also on display.

Vakulenko said it was impossible to insure the paintings crossing Ukraine, so the shipment was accompanied by security on its two-day journey to the Polish border.

“The most important thing was keeping secrecy of the cargo’s movement on the territory of Ukraine,” he said. “The details of the movement of cargo were known only to a very limited circle of people directly related to the process of transportation and security.”

Critical approach

The exhibition at Basel’s Museum of Fine Arts, Born in UkraineExternal link, showcases 49 works from the 18th to 20th centuries by Ukrainian-born artists, such as Ilya Repin and Volodymyr Borovykovsky. Many of the painters were trained in Russia and became associated with its empire or the Soviet Union.

‘Ukrainian House’ by Ilya Repin, 1880, currently on display in Basel Kyiv National Art Gallery

But the exhibitions challenge the concept that the works fit into an all-encompassing understanding of Russian art.

“It was an important project to understand the narrative of their collection, and also to view [their] history more critically and consciously,” Olga Osadtschy, assistant curator at the Kunstmuseum Basel, said of the Kyiv gallery’s initiative.

“We’re all used to this label ‘Russian art’, but there’s so much more beneath it.”

From Dusk To Dawn in Geneva runs until April 23; Born in Ukraine in Basel runs until July 2.