Helene Schjerfbeck exhibition to be shown at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York

Seeing Silence: The Paintings of Helene Schjerfbeck
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
5 Dec 2025–5 Apr 2026 

“This exhibition is a dream come true for me and a unique moment in the history of Finnish art. The Met is the world’s leading art museum, the undisputed number one in the museum world. I am particularly pleased that of the Finnish artists, it is precisely Helene Schjerfbeck who gets an exhibition at The Met”, says the director of the Ateneum Art Museum, Anna-Maria von Bonsdorff.

The exhibition will cover the entire career of Helene Schjerfbeck (1862–1946), from the first works of her youth to her last self-portraits. Other exhibits are to include portraits, still lifes and landscapes. In total, the exhibition will feature approximately 60 works. The exhibition continues the Ateneum’s work as a pioneer in research related to women artists.

Helene Schjerfbeck’s works to be featured in the exhibition include The Convalescent (1888), The Seamstress (The Working Woman) (1905) and self-portraits from 1884–1885, 1912, 1915 and 1944. Exhibits will include works held by the Finnish National Gallery/the Ateneum, as well as loans from other museums and private collections. The exhibition will also include the painting The Lace Shawl (1920), which The Met acquired for its collections in 2023. The painting is the first work by a Finnish artist in the museum’s collections.

The historic Helene Schjerfbeck exhibition will be presented in The Met’s Robert Lehman Wing, and it will be curated by the Robert Lehman Curator in Charge, Dita Amory. A consulting curator for the exhibition is Anna-Maria von Bonsdorff, director of the Ateneum. The exhibition will be complemented by the publication of an exhibition catalogue, produced by The Met, which will include an article by Anna-Maria von Bonsdorff.

The exhibition will be produced by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in cooperation with the Finnish National Gallery/the Ateneum Art Museum. The exhibition is made possible by Elsa A. Brule.

A review of Finnish contemporary art to be presented in New York

A contemporary art showcase will also be realised around the exhibition in cooperation with the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York and the Consulate General of Finland in New York, presenting the Finnish art scene, and its phenomena and makers. Three separate projects will showcase Finnish artists through high-quality exhibitions and cultural exchange between the United States and Finland.

As part of the contemporary art showcase, a gallery in New York will host the Remix the Archive exhibition produced by the Finnish National Gallery during May–June 2025. In 2024, the Finnish National Gallery organised Combine24, an open art competition that invited participants to create generative art making innovative use of copyright-free, CC0-licensed data in the Finnish National Gallery collection. The Remix the Archive exhibition will present works that made the final of the competition. The winner of the competition was Ilmo and Aarni Kapanen’s work Loom of Reality.

Art in the Ateneum’s holdings regularly shown in the world’s top museums

Helene Schjerfbeck’s works have attracted great interest around the world before. In 2019, in the UK, an exhibition of works by Helene Schjerfbeck held at the Royal Academy of Arts in London met with an enthusiastic reception. After being shown in London, the exhibition was on display at the Ateneum under the name Through My Travels I Found Myself, from 15 November 2019 to 26 January 2020.

In 2015–2016, an exhibition entitled Helene Schjerfbeck: Reflections toured Japan, with stopovers in four museums in Tokyo, Sendai, Hiroshima and Hayama. In 2014–2015, an exhibition of works by the artist was on display at the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, Germany.

“The Met’s current director, Max Hollein, was the director of the Schirn Kunsthalle when we collaborated on the Schjerfbeck exhibition there. The recognition of Finnish art has increased around the world – we are currently in a situation where international museums contact the Ateneum and not vice versa”, says Anna-Maria von Bonsdorff.

Aided by the Klassikot maailmalle (“Taking Finnish classics abroad”) project, with support from the Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation, an exhibition of works by Pekka Halonen will open at the Petit Palais in Paris on 4 November 2025. An Akseli Gallen-Kallela exhibition was presented at the Belvedere art museum in Vienna from 27 September 2024 to 2 February 2025. In 2022, the Petit Palais staged an exhibition of works by Albert Edelfelt.

Helene Schjerfbeck (1862–1946)

Helene Schjerfbeck is one of the most famous Finnish artists. She created an entirely unique, modern expressive idiom, by eliminating any extraneous elements from her paintings. She became adept at landscapes, portraits and still lifes, being capable of even capturing the soul of an apple with her brushstrokes. Schjerfbeck is known especially for her strong self-portraits, which she started painting as a young student, and which she continued to produce until she was worn with old age. The Ateneum Art Museum, which is part of the Finnish National Gallery, holds the world’s largest collection of works by Helene Schjerfbeck, more than 200 pieces.