Hermitage Amsterdam, Soon to be Renamed H’ART Museum, Settles Brand Dispute with HART magazine

The Hermitage Amsterdam has settled its dispute with Belgium’s HART magazine over the museum’s imminent rebranding to H’ART Museum. The art publication filed a legal objection to the name change after the museum announced the rebranding—which takes effect on September 1—but has since decided in “good consultation” to also change its name, Dutch news outlet AD reports.

“The consultation between the parties has led to the art magazine guaranteeing the independence of the editors by changing its name itself,” the parties announced in a joint press release. No further details about the settlement were shared.

The Hermitage Amsterdam rebranded as the H’ART Museum in June following its split from the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. Museum leadership said the move was done in support of war-torn Ukraine and announced new partnerships with the British Museum in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C.

The first major show there—set to open in mid-2024—will be staged in collaboration with the Centre Pompidou and will center on Wassily Kandinsky, the pioneering Russian-born abstract painter who became a French citizen in 1933. H’ART Museum has also organized a show with the British Museum, titled “Feminine Power,” for 2026, and is currently exhibiting Martine Gutierrez’s video installation Clubbing, on loan from the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

St. Petersburg’s Hermitage opened its Amsterdam outpost in 2009 and, until last year, largely abstained from commenting on Russian geopolitics. However, the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine “crossed a line,” the museum said, adding, “war destroys everything.” It severed ties with Russia the following month.