No more 'Russian dancers': the Metropolitan renamed Degas' painting at the request of Ukrainians

Thanks to the efforts of a Ukrainian journalist, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York renamed the painting by the French artist Edgar Degas “Russian Dancers” to “Dancers in Ukrainian Dress”.

About this Ukrainian journalist and art historian Oksana Semenyk posted on facebook.

“A small victory. Finally, the Metropolitan read a hundred of my letters, heard us. And the Degas dancers in Ukrainian dress became not Russian dancers, but Dancers in Ukrainian Dress, ”she said.

Semenik added that “I’m not very happy with the name, because they could have simply named Ukrainian Dancers, but this is already a small victory.”

In the description of the painting site of the museum the name “Russian dancers” was replaced by “Dancers in Ukrainian folk costume”. The information block was supplemented with a historical reference about Ukraine being a part of the Russian Empire, as well as the growing interest of the French in Ukrainian culture and art after the military-political union of the Russian Empire and France in 1894.

The painting “Dancers in Ukrainian Dress” Edgar Degas painted in 1899. For a long time, there were disputes around the name of the painting, and in 2022 a number of museums renamed this work. In particular, the National Gallery in London changed the name of the painting by the French artist to “Ukrainian Dancers”.

“I first visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art in December 2022, just before returning to Ukraine from my internship at the Zimerli Museum. There I saw this work, signed as “Russian dancers,” Semenik said.

On the subject: You can go on a tour of the Metropolitan Museum of Art with his former security guard and see the most hidden places of the institution.

She also saw works by Ilya Repin and Arkhip Kuindzhi in the permanent exhibition. They were called Russian artists in the museum.

“I made a post about this on my Twitter Ukrainian Art History and tagged Met. There was no reaction,” she said.

So she decided to take a different path. Namely, use the form for feedback on the museum's website, as well as write letters to different departments of the Met.

“I wrote about Ukrainian artists, these Degas dancers and Picasso's wife Olga Khokholova. Her signature has already been corrected and indicated that she is Ukrainian. Subsequently, I once again sent information to the feedback form that there were studies, that these were Ukrainian dancers. About a month later they answered me that they were considering my letter. But the answer was the standard one that had already been sent to me before. So I sent another email, ”the journalist explained.

As a result, she managed to achieve the renaming of the picture.

She said that she now conducts similar communication with other cultural institutions: MoMA, Smithsonian, Philadelphia and Brooklyn museums. Some of them react and make changes.

“I was answered by the Smithsonian and corrected that Helena Gerardia was born in the Dnieper, in Ukraine, and not in Yekaterinoslav, in Russia. ... Also, the Jewish Museum in New York reacted and corrected the birthplaces of Ukrainian artists such as Israel Litvak or Abram Manevich,” she said.

In March last year, almost a month after the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the National Gallery in London renamed Degas' painting "Russian Dancers" to "Ukrainian Dancers". The National Gallery in London was the first museum to change the name of a Degas painting.