Odessa Artworks Featured in Berlin Picture Gallery

There’s an air raid app that warns its users of incoming air raids. This is according to Iryna Fingerova, a doctor and author, who recently visited Odessa, a city under constant threat. The famous Potemkin Stairs leading to the sea are also cordoned off due to the risk of Russian air strikes.

The exhibition titled “From Odessa to Berlin” features European paintings from the 16th to 19th centuries. It’s currently open at the Picture Gallery at the Kulturforum until April 28th. Fingerova was present at the Kulturforum where she read out her notes. The museum in Odessa has loaned twelve paintings to the gallery, part of a larger collection of 74 paintings that were moved to Berlin before the air raids.

The collection’s centerpiece is a painting of a drunken Hercules by Rubens and his workshop. Another significant piece is the “Enthroned Madonna with Child Jesus and the Boy John,” a High Renaissance altarpiece that Francesco Granacci created in Florence in 1519. The exhibition label informs the viewer that it was located in a Roman Catholic church in Odessa in the 19th century.

For the upcoming exhibition next year, the paintings will be secured and provided with new frames. The provenance of the paintings remains unclear, as the archives of the Odessa Museum were largely destroyed in the Second World War.

The aim of this exchange is to send a signal of solidarity with Ukraine, according to the Gemäldegalerie director, Dagmar Hirschfelder. The Ukrainian Ambassador, Oleksii Makeiev, expressed his gratitude for the defense systems supplied by Germany that help protect Ukraine’s airspace.