Israeli gallery stashes Picassos and Klimts amid fears of Iranian attack

Tel Aviv museum consigns most of its treasures to basement with Tehran poised to strike

Paintings by Pablo Picasso and Gustav Klimt are among the treasures that have been moved into a bomb shelter by Tel Aviv Museum of Art to shield them from any possible Iranian attack.
The museum, along with most of Israel, is on high alert for a multi-front attack led by Iran that could target cities and civilian areas. As a precaution, valuable artworks are being placed in storage.
The museum began protecting its art in wake of Hamas’s attack on Oct 7 when the terrorist group launched waves of rockets at Israeli targets.
In the past few days, more works have been removed from the galleries as Iran threatened retaliation on Israel for the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last month.
“Since the situation is not clear, and this threat is always there, we feel the safe place for them is downstairs in the shelters,” Tania Coen-Uzzielli, the museum director, told AFP.
As a result, the most valuable pieces from the museum’s collection no longer hang on the walls but are stored in “rows of large metal grills” in the underground shelter.
Nathalie Andrijasevic, assistant curator of modern art, told AFP the museum has “some works by Picasso from different periods” which usually hang next to each other in the gallery.
“They are still next to each other, but in a completely different setting,” said Ms Andrijasevic.
Describing how the museum reacted to the immediate aftermath from the Oct 7 attack from Gaza, she added: “Rockets were being fired non-stop and we were just super-scared that they would penetrate the ceiling of the galleries and cause damage to our work.”