Restoration workshop at Odessa Art Museum

UPDATED: the project successfully raised funds. The workshop space is being renovated and equipped with necessary equipment.

Odessa Art Museum will celebrate its 120th anniversary this year, and for most of this time it has been state-funded. At the current stage, funds allocated for maintenance are critically insufficient. This affects both the building's facade and the artworks.

The museum's collection contains about a thousand paintings that require urgent restoration. The National Restoration Center provides free restoration of 6 artworks per year. Without creating our own workshops, it would take over 100 years to restore the museum's collection. The museum can also order restoration on a commercial basis, for example, the museum currently plans to restore Boris Kryukov's painting "Rest Day by the River". This requires about 45,000 ₴.

Over the past year, large-format canvases were restored: "Hutsul Couple" by Tatyana Yablonskaya, "Meat" by Boris Yakovlev and "Romeo and Juliet" by Konstantin Makovsky. Restoration was made possible thanks to private donations.

Considering the cost and number of works requiring restoration, it becomes clear that it's more rational to resume the restoration workshop at the museum. We've already attracted specialists who can perform quality restoration work and are ready to train a new generation of restorers.

Restoration workshops, based at Odessa Art Museum, will specialize in painting and graphics. Project work is already underway: premises have been allocated, heating repaired, boiler and alarm system installed.