The largest art museum in Finland, the Ateneum, has changed the nationality signature under the name of the artist Ilya Repin from russian to Ukrainian. This was reported by the local edition Suomen Kuvaleht, according to UNN.
Details
In 2021, the Finnish museum, in collaboration with the Tretyakov Gallery and the Museum of russian Art, held a major exhibition of Repin's works. It told the audience that the artist was born on the territory of modern Ukraine, but presented him as a russian.
Since then, Ukrainians have turned to the museum with the intention of restoring historical justice.
Ateneum curator Timo Guusko said that the final decision was made after a correspondence with Ukrainian journalist Anna Lodygina.
In early 2023, she asked the museum to provide materials about Repin's life in Finland. Then she was sent an article stating that Repin's parents were russians and were born in the Moscow region. In response, Lodygina sent evidence that this was not true: church documents showed that the artist's father and grandfather were born in Ukraine.
Eventually, the museum's management admitted its mistake, and now Repin is listed as a Ukrainian in the captions to the paintings.
Recall
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City" has revised the classification of three 19th-century artists previously considered russian - Ilya Repin, Arkhip Kuindzhi, and Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky - to draw attention to their Ukrainian roots.