Ukraine war impacts world's museums
Science Museum scraps Trans Siberian Railway exhibition
Hello.
Let me offer a huge welcome to my new readers who found maxwell museums via the latest Cheapskate London newsletter. It’s great to have you. It was a lovely surprise to be featured on Monday, in an excellent newsletter that helps you discover the best of London for free. Do sign up!
I’m writing this just after returning from a flying visit to the amazing city of Porto - my first foreign trip in over two years. Many custard tarts were had, and a few museums visited. It was good for the soul (despite the rain) and was much needed. The next trip is in the diary already.
Now on to the news!
Maxwell
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This week’s top story
The ripples of the brutal war in Ukraine are now being felt in the world of museums and galleries. Here in the UK the Science Museum Group has scrapped its (already covid-delayed) exhibition on the Trans Siberian Railway which was due to take place at the National Railway Museum. It was to be “produced in partnership with JSC Russian Railways” a state-owned company now subject to sanctions, so proceeding would have been impossible. Strangely, the announcement didn’t mention this point, which led some on Twitter to criticize the cancellation as over the top. And no mention of it from the Secretary of State Nadine Dorries who welcomed the decision “to pull” the show, and that “we must do all we can to make Putin's Russia an international pariah.” What was the benefit from not mentioning it?
In a busy week for the Science Museum Group press team, they also announced that Director Ian Blatchford is to return a Russian state decoration he was personally presented with by president Vladimir Putin. The Pushkin Medal honoured Blatchford’s role in creating the 2015 Cosmonauts: Birth of the Space Age exhibition.
Elsewhere, the Amsterdam Hermitage, a museum of Russian art in the Dutch capital that assembled its collection in cooperation with the famed State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, said it was "severing ties" with Russia. It ends a 30 year partnership.
Petr Aven, the chair of Alfa-Bank, Russia's largest commercial bank has stepped down as a trustee at the RA. The Royal Academy also announced it would return Aven’s donation which helped to fund its current blockbuster Francis Bacon: Man and Beast exhibition. Over in the US, Vladimir Potanin, one of Russia's richest men and who has been closely associated with President Vladimir Putin, has quit the board of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York "effective immediately" after 20 years.
There are questions about what will happen to treasures from Russian museums which are currently on loan to Europe. The Art Newspaper highlights the V&A’s Fabergé in London: Romance to Revolution and Paris’ The Morozov Collection. Icons of Modern Art at the Fondation Louis Vuitton as examples of major shows with major Russian loans. At the moment the works are staying put but you suspect no one - even the museum staff - know when, how or even if - they’ll return. (And surely this means there are doubts about the Hermitage loans going to the National Gallery’s Raphael exhibition, due to open in a month).
This week’s other stories
Over 100 members of staff at the University of Manchester have signed a letter opposing an attempt to force out the director of the Whitworth Art Gallery over a row regarding a statement in support of Palestine. The letter calls the move a “grave violation of academic and artistic freedom of expression.” It follows the news that 23 artists will withdraw their work from the touring British Art Show 9’s upcoming stop in the Manchester gallery. The Guardian
The formaldehyde sculptures are back. Yes, Damien Hirst is to display some of his most iconic works in London once more. In fact, it’s Hirst’s first-ever exhibition dedicated to these peculiar works which he’s created over three decades. And yes, the 14ft shark is part of it. See the show - called Natural History - at Gagosian Britannia Street from next week. Hypebeast
One of London’s most hidden of hidden treasures is FINALLY going to (re)open to the public. Work will shortly begin on a £3.2m restoration of the magnificent Grade II* listed Crystal Palace Subway which is one of the area’s last remaining original Victorian structures. Can’t wait. News Shopper
An unknown Monet painting has turned up… at Marks and Spencer. The British retail chain has owned the previously unrecorded work for 40 years, and it’s now going on long term loan to a gallery in Leeds. It’s not just a Monet, it’s an…..you get the picture. The Art Newspaper
£300,000 has been donated to Worcester Art Gallery and Museum in England’s West Midlands in order to help it become “regionally significant." The cash is being given by a local philanthropist and will be used to expand the art collection and to help begin creating a new gallery. Great to see some good news for regional museums. BBC News
Incredible bronzes sculpted by Renaissance master Donatello have been moved for the first time in over 600 years from the Italian churches where he first installed them. They are going to be highlights of the first ever exhibition of all major works by Donatello, which opens at the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi and the Bargello in Florence later this month. The Guardian
This is incredible. For nearly 165 years eerie but stunning early photographs have lain on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean after they were lost in the 1857 sinking of the SS Central America, otherwise known as ‘the ship of gold.’ The portraits show some of the loved ones of the 425 people killed when the vessel was hit by a hurricane. They’ve never been seen since, until now, and are published for the first time after “staring up at the living from the seabed.” The Observer
And finally
Happy 40th birthday to the Barbican, the brutalist nightmare we’ve come to love.
Congratulations to Gareth Redston who has been appointed as the new CEO of Manchester Jewish Museum.
London’s Burlington Arcade is now home to a new boutique shop from art gallery giant Gagosian. I’m off to browse the books.
All the content in this newsletter is provided to you for free. Why not buy me a digital coffee if you enjoyed it?