Museums' daring feat brings major Ukraine art show to Spain

MADRID (AP) — Against a backdrop of Russian bombardments, border closures and a nail-biting 3,500-kilometer (2,150-mile) truck journey across Europe, Spain's Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum has teamed up with the National Art Museum of Ukraine to secretly bring dozens of 20th century Ukrainian avant-garde artworks to Madrid for a unique exhibition and a show of support for the war-torn country.

“In The Eye Of The Hurricane. Modernism in Ukraine 1900-1930s,” opens to the public Tuesday, featuring some 70 works mostly from the Kyiv gallery and the country's theater, music and cinema museum. It will run until next April.

The show constitutes the first time that such a large body of modern art has left Ukraine. The circumstances under which it has been organized make it a feat of cultural defiance.

“This is super important for us as a way to protect our heritage, that we managed to take the works out of the war zone,” says Katia Denysova, one of the exhibition's curators.

The show is the brainchild of Swiss-born art collector and activist Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza, founder of the Museums for Ukraine support network, and her friend, Ukrainian art historian and curator Konstantin Akinsha. They came up with the idea following Russia's invasion of its neighbor last February.

The central concept was to counter Russia's narrative that Ukraine doesn't rightfully exist and that its art is really Russian.

“We wanted to act as a protector of these works that are extremely unique and rare, but also to do it by celebrating the value of Ukraine’s immense legacy that has been completely forgotten and appropriated by Russia over the last decades,” said Thyssen-Bornemisza, a daughter of the late Dutch-born industrialist and baron whose collection formed the basis of the Madrid...