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The Special Exhibition “From Odesa to Berlin” Visits Heidelberg

20.10.2025
Gemäldegalerie

From January to June 2025, the From Odesa to Berlin exhibition touched and inspired 110,000 visitors from 22 different countries. The Gemäldegalerie (Old Masters Paintings) presented works from the war-threatened Ukrainian Odesa Museum of Western and Eastern Art in dialogue with selected paintings from the Berlin collections. Since 19 October 2025, the show has been on display at the Kurpfälzisches Museum Heidelberg – in a version adapted to the exhibition venue’s collection. This is also an opportunity for anyone who missed the Berlin exhibition.

The major special exhibition, From Odesa to Berlin: European Painting of the 16th to 19th Century, displayed 60 paintings by European masters from the Odesa Museum of Western and Eastern Art in the Gemäldegalerie’s temporary exhibition space, together with 25 works from the Berlin collections.

Paintings Evacuated from Odesa

Shortly after the start of Russia’s war of aggression on 24 February 2025, the highlights of the Odesa Museum, founded in 1924, were taken to a Ukrainian emergency storage facility for safekeeping. In September 2023, 74 works were brought from Ukraine to Berlin. Conservation measures were undertaken by two restorers at the Gemäldegalerie, where the works were placed in newly made frames, as most paintings had been evacuated from Ukraine without frames.

In nine sections, the Berlin exhibition, From Odesa to Berlin, showcased the diversity of the Ukrainian collection, which was previously little known in Western Europe. Comparisons with works from the Berlin collections provided insights into the art and cultural-historical contexts and illustrated Western European influence on the Ukrainian collection. An introductory section examined the exhibition project’s history against the backdrop of Russia’s war of aggression and presented aspects of Odesa’s storied past.

The Exhibition’s Second Venue

Forty-five works from the Odesa Museum have now travelled from Berlin to Heidelberg. Until 22 March 2026, they will be displayed alongside selected paintings from the Kurpfälzisches Museum Heidelberg under the title Meisterwerke aus Odesa (Masterpieces from Odesa), before returning to Berlin in late March of next year.

The German–Ukrainian cooperation project was funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media and is under the patronage of the Federal President. It is an expression of the close cultural ties between Germany and Ukraine.