Amsterdam Hermitage Museum rebrands as H'Art, cuts ties with Russia

In March 2022, just one week after Russia invaded Ukraine, The Hermitage Amsterdam, which became an independent nonprofit in 2009 with unlimited borrowing rights from the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, cut its partnership with the Russian institution. The last exhibition, Russian Avant-Garde: Revolution in the Arts, ran for only five weeks in 2022, incurring an estimated loss of $2 million. In response, Dutch museums lent artworks in a show of solidarity, and the museum successfully raised almost $1 million through crowdfunding efforts. Now known as H'Art, the museum has formed collaborations with the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Centre Pompidou, and the British Museum. The Pompidou will host five exhibitions over five years, beginning in 2024 with a Wassily Kandinsky exhibit, aligning with its projected five-year renovation closure starting in 2025. Meanwhile, the Smithsonian and British Museum will each present three exhibitions over six years, with details to be announced later this year. Director Annabelle Birnie remarked, "We’re going to be like a museum for museums. Three partners will bring you a lot more than one."