Ateneum Art Museum and its Permanent Exhibition

It is good to start a museum guide with the letter A. So, the first museum chosen to new 2025 blog is the Ateneum.When touring European national galleries, especially in smaller countries, one often has to observe quite modest exhibitions. The presentation is sometimes provincial, even if the artists have potential for more. Finland is far north, a country sometimes characterized as an island. Here too, the danger of introversion is obvious. However, I think the museum has succeeded in its exhibitions

Read this article in Finnish here

Photo from the exhibition. On the left, Wäinö Aaltonen’s Granite Boy I, 1917–1920. Red granite

The venerable museum, which administratively now operates as part of the Finnish National Gallery, is located right in the center of Helsinki. Opposite it is the railway station designed by Eliel Saarinen, which was completed between 1909 and 1919.

Helsinki in 1900. The Ateneum building is on the edge of Railway Square (no. 2). The railway station is still the preceding building designed by Carl Albert Edelfelt, completed in 1861. Carl Albert's son, Albert Edelfelt, was one of Finland's most central visual artists. His works are also well represented in the museum's permanent exhibition

Eliel Saarinen's ink drawing. The Railway Station from the Ateneum direction. Detail from the book Rautatieasema, Hilkka Högström, Helsinki 2004. Original drawing, Museum of Finnish Architecture

The buildings on the square, which also include the National Theatre, can be seen as builders of the identity of the rising nation. The whole is complemented by the memorial statue of Aleksis Kivi, the most central writer of Finnish literature, placed in the square. It was made by Wäinö Aaltonen, known as the national sculptor. More works by Aaltonen can be found in the museum's collections and exhibitions.

Aleksis Kivi. In the background, the National Theatre (architect Onni Tarjanne 1902). Wäinö Aaltonen 1939 (Wikipedia, Kulttuurinavigaattori)

The Ateneum building was designed by Theodor Höijer (1887). Höijer was chosen for the task as the winner of an international architectural competition. Höijer was an excellent architect, although he has not risen to the same international fame as Eliel Saarinen, who moved to the United States in 1923.

Höijer's Neo-Renaissance Ateneum originally served as an academy of art and art industry; a large part of Finnish artists received their education there. Carl Gustav Estlander, the initiator of the Museum of Applied Arts, admired the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A Museum) in London. German and Austrian museums can also be seen as contemporaries of the Ateneum building. Ateneum transitioned solely to museum use in 1991. The changes were designed by the architectural office Laiho-Pulkkinen-Raunio.

I lived in Mitte, Berlin, for some years. In terms of the reliefs of great men of art, art industry, and culture on the exterior walls of Ateneum, it is nice to compare the museum to the Gropius Bau Museum (architect Martin Gropius 1881) near Leipziger Platz. That too was originally an educational institution and is now a museum focused on exhibition activities.

The Temple of Pallas Athene, Ateneum, is a museum that many visitors might easily perceive as the National Gallery itself. However, the National Gallery also includes the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma (Chiasma) and the Sinebrychoff Art Museum. And one should not forget the collection database and other digital material online, which form a kind of museum of their own.

The Permanent Exhibition: A Question of Time

The Ateneum's permanent exhibition is titled A Question of Time. The goal is not only to examine the museum's art collection with new eyes but also to "shed light on the great questions of the present through the mirror provided by visual art." The goal is big, but without good goals, one presumably cannot achieve good results either.

The title is approached through four themes.

The first theme relates to Nature, which is a timely subject in a world of climate change and extinction. Works related to nature and animals from the collection are on display. The works, at least the older ones, were not made for the world of the climate crisis, but the viewer can seek from the ensemble a picture of the relationship we have had with nature and our co-inhabitants in the past. And how the perspective changes, becoming more critical and opinionated as it approaches the present. It is easy to look at older works through the lens of the present, reinterpreting them.

The second theme is Finnish Identity. This offers an excellent view of how Finnishness was shaped by means of art. Identity was truly needed. A writing by the poet Eino Leino summarizes the nation's situation: Without history, without culture, without national feeling, without its own political life, it seemed to be doomed to be also without its own future, just as it was without its own antiquity and – present. (Quote from Ritva Wäre's dissertation in 1991).

The third theme is The City. This theme considers how modern times feel, how artists depict the city and modern life.

The fourth theme is The Users of Power in Art. How was the Ateneum collection formed, who decided which works were acquired for the collection?

The Permanent Exhibition: A Question of Time

Like many other museums, a large part of the collection has been formed by donations. The exhibition highlights the significant donation received by the Finnish Art Society in 1893. According to the exhibition text, art collector and doctor Herman Frithiof Antell bequeathed his collection and property to the Finns. Antell himself had inherited his wealth from his father at the age of 27, which enabled him to devote himself to collecting art in Paris. The fund secured the development of the collection for decades to come. Among other things, the funds were used to acquire Albert Edelfelt’s Luxembourg Gardens, Paris in 1908 and the only work by Vincent van Gogh exhibited in Finnish museum collections (acquired in 1903).

The Permanent Exhibition: A Question of Time. Albert Edelfelt (Center)

Ilya Repin is placed in the section of collection donors in the exhibition. The artist remained living in Finland after the revolution and donated some of his works to the Ateneum. The exhibition themes highlight how someone always wields power in the formation and presentation of the collection. In this, the museum is right, and museums are not detached from politics and questions of war and peace either. 

In this case, perhaps the exhibition description could have opened up the history of the interesting artist and, for example, the reason why the artist is named Ukrainian in the work description – even though in Ateneum's major exhibition in 2021, Repin was characterized as Russia's most famous painter. The other question is, of course, whether nationality needs to be mentioned in connection with the title plaques of works of art. Especially when nationality seems to be a fluid concept. Nor is it, like gender, unequivocally definable.

The Permanent Exhibition: A Question of Time, Left Ilya Repin: Jelizaveta Zvantseva (1889). Artists donation 1920

The Ateneum permanent exhibition is a wonderful way to get acquainted with the significant figures in Finnish history, and fortunately also a broader spectrum of people living in Finland.

GUNNAR BERNDTSON 1854-1895. The Bride’s Song, 188, oil, bequest 1893, collection Antel

GEORGES WINTER 1875-1954. Vigour of the Lower Class, 1902, bronze, acquired 1906

Photo from the exhibition. YRJÖ SAARINEN 1899-1958. Tea Drinkers, Paatene, 1942, oil, acquired 1995. JUHO KYYHKΥΝΕΝ 1875–1909. Kota (Lapp Hut), 1909, oil, acquired 2010. HEIKKI TUOMELA 1922-1991. Romani Woman, 1981, oil, acquired 2003. SIRPA ALALÄÄKKÖLÄ 1964-. Samiuela Elone (Tonga), from the series "Lives and Works in Finland", 1998, acrylic. Kiasma, acquired 1998 National Gallery

The Ateneum permanent exhibition naturally features the museum's central masters of Finnish art and paintings that Finns are familiar with from school books. In addition to Albert Edelfelt, the exhibition also features Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Hugo Simberg, Helene Schjerfbeck, and Tove Jansson, among others.

HELENE SCHJERFBECK 1862-1946. The Convalescent, 1888, oil, acquired 1888

AKSELI GALLEN-KALLELA 1865-1931. Lemminkäinen's Mother, 1897, tempera

.In-depth sections have been written for some works in the exhibition. Here, regarding Tove Jansson's self-portrait. More information is also available via a QR code. The museum's website also has good supplementary material about the exhibition.

Tove Jansson. Self-Portrait, 1942. Oil. Purchased 2016

Photographs from the exhibition by the author

Opening hours

Tuesday10–18

Wednesday–Thursday10–20

Friday10–18

Saturday–Sunday10–17

MondayClosed

 Admission to the exhibitions is free with a Museum Card and under 18; otherwise, the ticket prices are high compared to many other museums, with a normal ticket costing 22 euros from the counter.

Museums Webpage