Press conference on 18 October at 10:15: Colour & Light – The Legacy of Impressionism

Presenting the exhibition to the media will be its curators: the director of the Ateneum, Marja Sakari, and the chief curator of exhibitions at the Ateneum, Anna-Maria von Bonsdorff. The event will also hear from Professor Emeritus Anthea Callen, who is a world expert in Impressionism and who participated in the exhibition project from the very beginning. Callen is known for example for her contributions to Fake or Fortune, a documentary television series on art, broadcasted in Finland by YLE, the Finnish Broadcasting Company.

The press conference will be opened by Johanna Savolainen, head of communications at the Ateneum. The event will be held in Finnish and English. Please register for the event by 13 October by clicking this link.

Joyful play with colour is a relatively late feature on the canvases of Finnish artists

Impressionism is an art movement that was active in France in the 1870s, in which immediate perceptions and impressions are highlighted. At the end of the 19th century, almost all Finnish professional artists headed to Paris and, while in the art capital, they were exposed to all things new – including Impressionism. In the 19th century, however, no Finnish artists actively embraced this movement that brought about a radical revolution in art.

One of the key starting points of the exhibition Colour & Light – The Legacy of Impressionism is the question of why the influence of Impressionism did not start to show in Finnish art until the first two decades of the 20th century.

The exhibition is strongly linked to the history of the Ateneum, while at the same time highlighting the impact of the legacy of Impressionism on the modern art of Finland in the 1910s. In 1904, an exhibition of Franco-Belgian art was held at the Ateneum, which did not attract a large audience, but which served as one of the key events that marked the beginning of a new, colourful phase in Finnish art. In the history of Finnish art, there is an interesting period of ten or so years, from 1906 to 1916, when almost every artist changed their palette to brighter colours.

Colour & Light puts top names in international art side by side with Finnish artists from this period, the heyday of Finnish Colourism. The international artists in the exhibition include Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Camille Pissarro, Alfred William Finch, Paul Signac and Théo van Rysselberghe. The featured Finnish artists include Alvar Cawén, Antti Favén, Magnus Enckell, Pekka Halonen, Ellen Thesleff, Verner Thomé, Yrjö Ollila, Tyko Sallinen and Wilho Sjöström.

You can also follow the press conference online

To join the press conference online, click this link. You can join the press conference from 10:00, and it will start at 10:15. During the event, you can ask questions using the chat function.

To join the meeting using a mobile device, you need to download the Teams application. When using a computer, you can also join using just a browser. When using a browser, we recommend using the latest version of Chrome or Edge. If you have problems joining the conference, the contact person during the event is the communications officer Anna Kari, tel. +358 40 717 8185.

Arrival

The doors of the Ateneum’s main entrance open at 10:00. The address is Kaivokatu 2, 00100 Helsinki.