Amos Rex is an art museum named after the publisher and arts patron

Amos Anderson Amos Valentin Anderson (3 September 1878, Kimito, Finland – 2 April 1961, Dragsfjärd, Finland) was the owner of Finland's largest Swedish-language newspaper, Hufvudstadsbladet, and a patron of the arts. Amos Anderson grew up in the Southwest ...

and located in Lasipalatsi, on

Mannerheimintie Mannerheimintie () (previously known as ''Henrikinkatu'', ''Läntinen ja Itäinen Henrikinkatu'', ''Läntinen ja Itäinen Heikinkatu'', ''Turuntie'', ''Läntinen viertotie'', ''Heikinkatu''), colloquially known as Mansku, named after the Finni ...

boulevard in

Helsinki Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...

, Finland. It opened in 2018 and rapidly reached international popularity, attracting more than 10,000 visitors in a matter of weeks. It attracts about 250,000 visitors annually. Kieran Long has been the director since February 2024.

History

In 2013, the museum announced plans to build a subterranean annex under the Lasipalatsi plaza, located near the museum's premises on Yrjönkatu. The annex was estimated to cost 50 million euros and to also use facilities above the ground in the Lasipalatsi building. The Helsinki City Board decided to reserve the plot for the museum in December 2013. The funding was provided by the Finnish-Swedish arts foundation

Konstsamfundet Föreningen Konstsamfundet (lit. "The Art Foundation Association") is a Finnish association with the goal of supporting the culture of the Swedish-speaking minority of Finland. It was founded in 1940 by '' vuorineuvos'' Amos Anderson, a newspaper ...

. The museum plan was unanimously approved by the

Helsinki City Council The City Council of Helsinki ( , ) is the main decision-making organ in the local politics of Helsinki, Finland. The City Council deals with issues such as city planning, schools, health care, and public transport. The 85-seat Council's members ...

in May 2014 and the new annex was scheduled to open in 2017. The new annex was designed by

JKMM Architects JKMM Architects () is a Finnish architectural firm. Asmo Jaaksi, Teemu Kurkela, Samuli Miettinen and Juha Mäki-Jyllilä established JKMM Architects in 1998. They started their studies in the middle of eighties. From the beginning, architectural ...

, whose other works include the

Turku Main Library Turku Main Library (, ) is the chief branch of Turku City Library, located in the city centre of Turku, Finland. The library is approximately 8,500 m2. Old building The Turku Main Library 2,900 m2 old building is a Dutch late Renaissance style b ...

and the Finnish pavilion at the 2010

Shanghai World Expo Expo 2010, officially the Expo 2010 Shanghai China, was held on both banks of the Huangpu River in Shanghai, China, from 1 May to 31 October 2010. It was a major World Expo registered by the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE), in the tr ...

. The construction of the new museum started in January 2016 and it opened to the public in August 2018.

Exhibitions

Massless, the first exhibition at the Amos Rex museum, was created by the Japanese collective teamLab. It consisted of a colourful, immersive interactive art exhibition. Viewers were encouraged to interact and explore with the surroundings, generating different visual results. Amos Rex holds approximately 3–4 exhibitions a year.

Amos Anderson Art Museum, 1965-2017

The Amos Anderson Art Museum (, ) is an art museum in Helsinki. It is the largest private art museum in Finland. The museum is currently situated on Yrjönkatu, with a subterranean annex, known as Amos Rex, built beneath Lasipalatsi.

History

The museum was founded by

, the owner of the Swedish-language ''

Hufvudstadsbladet ''Hufvudstadsbladet'' (abbr. ''HBL'') is the highest-circulation Swedish language, Swedish-language newspaper in Finland. Its headquarters is located in Helsinki, the capital of Finland. The name of the newspaper translates approximately into "Jo ...

'' newspaper and a patron of the arts. In 1913, Anderson commissioned architects W. G. Palmqvist and Einar Sjöström to design a building on Yrjönkatu. The building would function as both Anderson's private living quarters and office space for his businesses. After Anderson's death in 1961, the building was converted into a museum, which opened in 1965. As of early 2019, Luckan, a Konstsamundet financed center for

Finland Swedish Finland Swedish or Fenno-Swedish (; ) is a Variety (linguistics), variety of the Swedish language and a closely related group of Swedish dialects spoken in Finland by the Swedish-speaking population of Finland, Swedish-speaking population, common ...

culture, moved to the Yrjönkatu building previously used by the museum.

Collections and exhibitions

The Amos Anderson Art Museum's collections include primarily

20th-century art Twentieth-century art—and what it became as modern art—began with modernism in the late nineteenth century. Overview Nineteenth-century movements of Post-Impressionism (), Art Nouveau and Symbolism led to the first twentieth-century art mov ...

, with some of the oldest works originally belonging to Amos Anderson's personal collection. The museum has paintings by Francesco Bassano (''Adoration of the Magi''),

Paul Signac Paul Victor Jules Signac ( , ; 11 November 1863 – 15 August 1935) was a French Neo-Impressionist painter who, with Georges Seurat, helped develop the artistic technique Pointillism. Biography Paul-Victor-Jules Signac was born in Paris on ...

Louis Valtat Louis Valtat (; 8 August 1869 – 2 January 1952) was a French painter and printmaker associated with the Fauvism, Fauves ("the wild beasts", so named for their wild use of color), who first exhibited together in 1905 at the Salon d'Automne. ' ...

Roger Fry Roger Eliot Fry (14 December 1866 – 9 September 1934) was an English painter and art critic, critic, and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Establishing his reputation as a scholar of the Old Masters, he became an advocate of more recent ...

, Alfred Finch (''View of Fiesöle''), Ragnar Ekelund,

Magnus Enckell Knut Magnus Enckell (9 November 1870 in Hamina – 27 November 1925 in Stockholm) was a Finnish symbolist painter. At first, he painted with a subdued palette, but from 1902 onwards, used increasingly bright colors. He was a leading member of the ...

, Eero Nelimarkka, Tyko Sallinen,

Tove Jansson Tove Marika Jansson (; 9 August 1914 – 27 June 2001) was a Swedish-speaking Finnish author, novelist, painter, illustrator and comic strip author. Brought up by artistic parents, Jansson studied art from 1930 to 1938 in Helsinki, Stockholm, ...

(''Fantasy''), and the Swedish painter Palm. In its acquisitions, the museum concentrates on contemporary art. The museum arranges 8–12 exhibitions a year.

References

External links

Official website
{{Helsinki Cityscape Buildings and structures completed in 1913 1965 establishments in Finland Art museums and galleries established in 1965 Museums in Helsinki Art museums and galleries in Finland Anderson, Amos Kamppi

History

Exhibitions

Amos Anderson Art Museum, 1965-2017

History

Collections and exhibitions

See also

References

External links