Ateneum Art Museum

Ateneum Art Museum houses the largest collections of art in Finland with more than 20,000 works of art. It has paintings, sculptures, prints and drawings from the 1750s to the work of artists who began their career in the 1950s. Ateneum Art Museum is part of the Finnish National Gallery. The collections are on public display on the first and the second floor of the museum. Temporary exhibitions are on display in the exhibition halls on the third floor. Ateneum also organizes various workshops, guided tours, lectures, dance, theatre and music performances as well as an interdisciplinary art programme.

The Ateneum building was designed by the architect Theodor Höijer and it was completed in 1887. It has housed the collections and Drawing School (now the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts) of the Finnish Art Society as well as the School of Applied Art (now the Aalto University School of Art and Design) and the collections of the Finnish Society of Crafts and Design. The art collections were opened to the public on 13 October 1888. This date is still celebrated as Ateneum’s birthday.