Past exhibitions
Spirit and Passion – Art as Ecstacy
Spirit and Passion – Art as Ecstasy (6 May–21 September 2025) is an exploration of religion and spirituality but also passion, desire and pleasure. In the works chosen for this exhibition, earthly joys and sensuality go hand in hand with the spiritual dimension. How have visual artists approached the complex interplay between sensuality, corporeality, mortality and spirituality? And how are their choices reflected in their art?
Laila Karttunen: Life’s Colourful Tapestry
An exhibition titled Laila Karttunen: Life’s Colourful Tapestry, opened at Hämeenlinna Art Museum on 22 November 2024. Year 2025 marks the 130th anniversary of this remarkable artist’s birth.
Laila Karttunen (1895–1981) counts among the pioneers of Finnish textile art. As an artist, she had a strong interest in time, exploring the past and experimenting with the new. This exhibition will offer a complete survey of Karttunen’s career, comprising everything from sketches to rya rugs, oil paintings and textile art works.
Abstracting the Ordinary – Art from the Everyday
Is there such a thing as purely abstract art? What kind of abstractions shape our everyday lives? These are the questions explored by Abstracting the Ordinary – Art from the Everyday, the first instalment in a new exhibition series by Hämeenlinna Art Museum. At the core of our latest exhibit is the Niemistö Art Collection, on long-term deposit to the museum, which comprises Finnish and Nordic art from the 1950s to the present day. On display will be paintings, sculpture, photography, installation, drawings, prints and new media.
Art Realm ’24 Biennale
The Art Realm gives power to art. What happens when art leads and society follows?
Hämeenlinna Art Museum and Tampere Art Museum have joined forces with the Lahti Museum of Visual Arts Malva to launch Art Realm, a brand-new series of biennial exhibitions, which will rotate between venues in Kanta-Häme, Pirkanmaa and Päijät-Häme.
Within the Art Realm, artistic freedom makes anything possible. Art is not confined to a vacuum, however, but always exists in a dynamic relationship with its surroundings, meaningfully connected to wider society. That is why the Art Realm will be seeking to establish close collaborative relationships with experts from other fields.
Grains of Time: Finnish Woodcut Artists Society 10 years
Grains of Time: Finnish Woodcut Artists Society 10 years celebrates Finnish woodcut art from the past to the present day. The oldest form of printmaking is thriving as a diverse, experimental form of contemporary art, evolving from prints and books to three-dimensional artworks. Woodcuts sketch out personal histories, memory, nature and knowledge.
The exhibition also explores the methods and history of woodcut making. Woodcuts selected from the Hämeenlinna Art Museum collection outline a century of Finnish woodcuts, from its roots to modern forms of expression.
Camilla Vuorenmaa, Resilient Heart
Camilla Vuorenmaa’s (b. 1979, in Tampere, Finland) art frequently explores themes of humanity and what it means to be human, including individual survival, and the myths and stories we tell. In A Resilient Heart, the artist has turned her attention to family, adolescence and the process of growing up.
Facing Life
As part of our Z/N-dialogi project, 25 young people aged 15–20 were invited to curate and deliver a new exhibition based on the Niemistö contemporary art collection.
Our Choices – A Selection of Works from the Hämeenlinna Art Museum Collections
Hämeenlinna Art Museum staff have taken a deep dive into the veritable treasure trove that is the museum’s collections to choose a series of works for this 70th anniversary exhibition. Our Choices explores the multiple facets of humanity: crises, differences and darkness, but also love, hope and intimacy. The exhibition also looks at our relationship with the natural world and the cosmos beyond.
ARS FENNICA 2021
ARS FENNICA, Finland’s most prestigious art prize, is awarded by the Henna and Pertti Niemistö Art Foundation. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the award in 2021, an exhibition at Hämeenlinna Art Museum showcased a selection of the works by the nominees of ARS FENNICA 2021. ARS FENNICA 2021 Award nominees were Eija-Liisa Ahtila (Finland), Anne-Karin Furunes (Norway), Jesper Just (Denmark), Viggo Wallensköld (Finland), Magnus Wallin (Sweden).
THE NEW BEAUTY – Modernist Highlights from the Nicolai Tangen Collection
The Norwegian Nicolai Tangen’s collection of Nordic modernism is the world’s largest in private ownership. Its main focus is on abstract art from after the Second World War, but the arc of the collection extends from the 1920s avantgarde to the 2000s.
THE NEW BEAUTY presents works by the collection’s Finnish artists, who come together here with their Nordic friends and contemporaries. Among the artists are classic figures such as Sam Vanni and Birger Carlstedt, but also many lesser-known names.
With a Strong and Colourful Brush – Paintings by Maija Isola
Maija Isola’s (1927–2001) career as a painter spanned nearly five decades. She is best known for the print patterns she created for Finnish design house Marimekko, many of which remain in production to this day, but her artistic output remains less well known. This exhibition offers a comprehensive overview of Maija Isola’s paintings from the 1950s until the 1990s.
Destined for Creativity – ITE and Friends
Finnish contemporary folk art phenomenon ITE, from the Finnish itse tehty elämä or self-made life, is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. To mark the occasion, Finnish ITE artists will be joined on a jubilee tour by their friends from the fields of outsider and contemporary art.
The Eighties – Exploring Art from the 1980s
This exhibition takes visitors on a journey back to the colourful 1980s, when Finland’s economy was booming, the end of the Cold War was heralding the arrival of a new geopolitical era, and around the world borders were opening and walls were falling. New technologies were beginning to emerge with many of the innovations.
Short Stories about Art
Artworks often come with a fascinating backstory. The exhibition brings together a selection of well-known and less well-known works from the collection.
