Welcome to the Crossing Borders exhibition press conference on Wednesday 5 March 2025, at 10:15

Press conference on Wednesday 5 March at 10:15 – also online

A press conference for the exhibition will be held in the Ateneum Hall starting at 10:15. The doors of the Ateneum will open at 10:00. The exhibition will be open for preview on the third floor of the museum until 13:00. You can also follow the press conference online.

The exhibition will be discussed by the exhibition curator Anne-Maria Pennonen, director of the Ateneum Anna-Maria von Bonsdorff and the co-editor-in-chief of the exhibition publication Hanne Selkokari.

The event will be in Finnish and English. Please register for the event by Tuesday 4 March 2025. Click this link to register.

See directions on how to get here. 

You can also follow the press conference online 

To join the press conference online, click  this link. You can join from 10:00, and the press conference 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.  

More information:
Communications Officer Reetta Haarajoki, tel. +358 50 476 6290, reetta.haarajoki[a]ateneum.fi
Communications manager Anna Kari, tel. +358 40 717 8185, anna.kari[a]ateneum.fi 

Images: press.ateneum.fi 

Crossing Borders changes our understanding of the lives of women artists in the 1800s

Crossing Borders – Travelling Women Artists in the 1800s
7 March–24 August 2025 

To get a better education, artists in the 1800s had to travel abroad, to cities such as Düsseldorf, Dresden, Munich, and Berlin in Germany. Women were only allowed to study as private students of male artists or in art schools men had established for women. 

Travel was slow and sometimes dangerous, and it required special arrangements, as women were not allowed to travel alone. Travelling also influenced the subjects of the works: instead of landscapes, the more suitable subjects for women were flowers, still lifes and portraits. In accordance with the fashion of the time, women wore crinolines, so painting was easier indoors than outdoors in nature. 

The artists featured in Crossing Borders worked at a time when women did not yet have the right to vote. Women had to choose between a career and a family: when they got married, they usually had to stop working as artists. Many of the courageous artists featured in the exhibition were role models for later women artists such as Helene Schjerfbeck and Ellen Thesleff. 

An art-historically significant exhibition highlights previously completely unknown artists and their networks, and puts on display works never before seen in Finland. The exhibition continues the Ateneum’s work as a pioneer in research related to women artists, and it is curated by the Ateneum curator Anne-Maria Pennonen. It highlights the importance of Germany as an art nation and a travel destination over France, which has been studied much more. 

All the artists of Crossing Borders from the Nordic countries, the Baltic countries, Germany and Poland studied and worked in Germany in the 1800s. The Finnish artists featured in the exhibition include Fanny Churberg, Alexandra Frosterus-Såltin, Ida Silfverberg and Victoria Åberg, while foreign artists include Jeanna Bauck, Mathilde Bonnevie-Dietrichson, Marie Ellenrieder, Julie Hagen-Schwarz, Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann, Magda Kröner, Amalia Lindegren, Emmy Lischke and Bertha Wegmann. The exhibition also features drawings by Finland’s first female scientific illustrator, Hilda Olson, from the collection of the Finnish Museum of Natural History. In all, the exhibits include paintings, sculptures and drawings by more than 50 artists, all of whom are women. 

The partner of the international exhibition and one of the lenders of the artworks is the Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf, which will stage a second version of the exhibition in the autumn of 2025, after the showing at the Ateneum. There is a wide representation of exhibits from the Finnish National Gallery collection, and works are also on loan from, for example, the Alte Nationalgalerie (Germany), the Nationalmuseum (Sweden), the Gothenburg Museum of Art, the National Museum (Norway), the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (Denmark) and the National Gallery of Denmark, and the Art Museum of Estonia. 

The exhibition is complemented by the publication of an exhibition catalogue in Finnish, Swedish and English. The editors-in-chief of the publication are Anne-Maria Pennonen and Hanne Selkokari. The publication features a total of 18 articles by international researchers. 

Ateneum Art Museum

Opening hours and admission fees in 2025

From 27 January to 30 June 2025 and from 1 September to 31 December 2025, the museum will be open as follows:
Mon closed | Tue–Wed 10–18 | Thu 10–20 | Fri 10–18 | Sat–Sun 10–17 

In July and August, the museum will also be open on Mondays. From 1 July to 31 August 2025, the museum will be open as follows: 
Mon 11–17 | Tue–Wed 10–18 | Thu 10–20 | Fri 10–18 | Sat–Sun 10–17 |  

Admission fees 
Standard ticket at the ticket office €22 | Standard ticket online €20 | Concession ticket €12 | 18–24-year-olds €12 | Under 18-year-olds free of charge | Free admission with a Museum Card