Gaze – Works from the Serlachius art collection

The new collection exhibition features much-loved favourites from the Serlachius art collection. Treasures hidden in the museum’s storage facilities will also be displayed, some for the first time in Mänttä. Art belongs to everyone – including you. That’s why the public’s choices also receive their own room in the exhibition.

The history of the Manor comes to life in the study of the Fine Arts Foundation’s founder, art collector and industrialist Gösta Serlachius. The study’s interior design transports you back in time. On what kind of works did Serlachius focus his gaze as he amassed his collection, and with what kind of pictures did he wish to surround himself?

The Gösta Serlachius Fine Arts Foundation’s collection comprises around ten thousand works, and it is still growing. Based on a body of around five hundred works assembled by Gösta Serlachius himself, the current collection retains the focus of his acquisitions: old European art, Finnish art from the late 19th/early 20th centuries, and Modernism. Serlachius was an active patron of artists, collecting contemporary art of his time and working closely with the artists. The same legacy is still evident in the Foundation’s activities. Contemporary art is the fastest growing part of the collection.

Art tells about people: about everyday life, joy and suffering. At the same time, it tells us about values – about how people at different times wished to view the world and what has been considered beautiful, worth depicting. Although times and worldviews change, the desire to seek beauty has remained the same. Through whose gaze has art history been constructed, who has been given the chance to be seen, who has been left out of sight?

Gaze invites you to examine even familiar works with fresh eyes. What do you see?