Despite obstacles to cultural exchange, an ambitious loan programme between the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art is proceeding. The Israeli institution plans to lend its entire collection of works by the Ukrainian avant-garde artist Alexander Archipenko (1887-1964) to the Russian institution in summer 2016. The works first entered the Tel Aviv museum’s collection in 1933, sent there by the German-Jewish collector Erich Goeritz to protect them from the Nazis. In exchange, the Hermitage will send a selection of paintings by Matisse, including Young Woman in a Blue Blouse (1939), for an exhibition in Tel Aviv in autumn 2016.
