Ateneum

National art museum with the great Finnish nineteenth and twentieth century paintings

Finland's national gallery of older art, opposite the central railway station in a grand 1887 building by Theodor Höijer. The collection runs from the eighteenth century to the 1960s and is especially strong on the golden age of Finnish painting around 1900 — Gallen-Kallela, Edelfelt, Helene Schjerfbeck, Hugo Simberg, Pekka Halonen — the generation that gave Finland its visual self-image.

Pair with Kiasma (contemporary art) and HAM (Helsinki city art collection) for a full art day. Ateneum and Kiasma share a combined ticket.

things to do museum
A story
The Ateneum holds Akseli Gallen-Kallela's monumental Kalevala paintings — the Aino triptych and the Defense of the Sampo — which more or less defined Finnish national identity in the years before independence. They alone are worth the ticket.