Kherson Art Museum

The Kherson Art Museum (also known as the Shovkunenko Kherson Regional Art Museum;[2] Ukrainian: Херсонський обласний художній музей імені Олексія Шовкуненка, romanized: Khersonskyi oblasnyi khudozhnii muzei imeni Oleksiia Shovkunenka) is an art museum in Kherson, Ukraine.[3][2] It is housed in Kherson's former city hall building.[1]

Kherson Art Museum

Херсонський обласний художній музей імені Олексія Шовкуненка
Established	27 May 1978[1]
Location	Kherson, Ukraine
Type	Art museum
Website	https://artmuseum.ks.ua

The museum first opened on 27 May 1978.[1]

During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the museum was looted by Russian troops while Kherson was occupied. A short time before the city was liberated by Ukrainian forces, the Russians stuffed almost 15,000 works of art carelessly into trucks and buses.[4] The collection was moved to the Central Museum of Taurida in Simferopol in Russian-occupied Crimea, where the museum director Andrei Malgin claimed that the move was made to ensure the safety of the artworks until they could be returned to the rightful owner.[5] The Kherson police opened investigation into what they saw as a war crime.[4] The deliberate Russian destruction and looting of more than 500 Ukrainian cultural heritage sites has been considered by Ukraine's Minister of Culture as cultural genocide.[6][7]