Extensive Ellen Thesleff exhibition to Japan 2027–2028

The exhibition is curated by Director of Serlachius Pauli Sivonen and Ukrainian art historian Olga Tykhonova. Works from the most significant Finnish Thesleff collections will be included.

According to Sivonen, the project continues a long tradition of Finnish-Japanese cultural exchange. For decades now, there has been a great deal of interest in Finnish art, culture and design in Japan.

“Several significant exhibitions of Finnish art have been organised in the country. Now it’s Ellen Thesleff’s turn to be widely introduced to the Japanese public,” he says.

Sivonen believes that the exhibition can be considered a cultural achievement of the museum and art sector.

“Ellen Thesleff is an integral part of Finland’s art history, and her exhibition is a joint endeavour by Finnish public and private art collections to raise the profile of our country’s art on the international stage. It is therefore particularly wonderful that the project will also produce the first comprehensive international art-historical publication on the art of Ellen Thesleff.”

The project accordingly requires extensive national cooperation. The following have so far confirmed their participation: Aine Art Museum, Amos Rex, Ateneum, HAM, Joensuu Art Museum, Kemi Art Museum, Kirpilä Art Collection, Kuopio Art Museum, LähiTapiola Art Collection, Niemistö Art Foundation Ars Fennica, Nordea Art Foundation Collection, Ostrobothnia Museum, Reitz Foundation Collections, Villa Gyllenbergand some private collections. More participants are expected, and these will be announced at a later date.

The exhibition, which will be on display at Tokyo Station Gallery from 27 November 2027 to 13 February 2028, will travel in spring 2028 to another museum in Japan, to be announced later.

An exceptional pathfinder

Ellen Thesleff was an exceptional artist in her time: a talented and original figure who followed her own path. She uncompromisingly developed her art from the Symbolism of her early years through colourful Expressionism and almost towards Abstract Expressionism.

Like other Finnish artists, Thesleff studied in Paris in her youth and there embraced the latest art movements of the time, which she nevertheless assimilated into her own artistic style. She was an exceptional colourist and innovator of woodcut technique who constantly challenged the established boundaries of art.

The artist’s greatest source of inspiration was the city of Florence, where she lived and worked on a number of occasions in the 1890s–1910s. Thesleff maintained close ties with Finland, as she spent her summers with her family and, later, at her own villa at Murole, Ruovesi, painting Finnish themes.

The Travel Light exhibition will showcase the artist’s works from her time in France, Italy and Finland. The play on words in the exhibition’s title refers not only to travel but also to light – an element intrinsically linked to the artist’s work – which appears intense in the southern paintings and softer in those from the north.