HELMIÄ (The Pearls) exhibition presented works from the Sara Hildén Foundation collection. It constituted a dialogue between the collection’s core classic works of modernism and new acquisitions representing pearls of contemporary art. Indeed pearls were quite literally on show here since the recently acquired work Red and White Necklace made of Murano glass by the French artist Jean-Michel Othoniel were exhibited for the first time.

The upper floor of the museum housed classics of European modernism and early pre-war masters. They represent the movements in modern art of the early twentieth century from post impressionism to cubism and surrealism. Among the artists represented were Pierre Bonnard, Giorgio de Chirico, Juan Gris, Paul Klee, Fernand Léger and Pablo Picasso together with masters of modern art of a younger generation such as Paul Delvaux, Joan Miró and Giorgio Morandi. Paul Delvaux’s Summer was Sara Hildén’s own favourite work. Alongside these classic works was Helene Schjerfbeck’s The Woodcarver, an example of early Finnish modernism. Other major works in the collection included the British sculptor Henry Moore’s Reclining Mother and Child and Alberto Giacometti’s female figure Woman on a Chario

”Non-figurative” is one common denominator of the collection’s post-war works. Informalism, which emphasized the artist’s freedom of expression, was the predominant movement in European art in the 1960s. Among its main exponents were Jean Dubuffet and Hans Hartung, who are on show in this exhibition. Stricter geometrical abstract art was represented by Josef Albers (who was also a theoretician of the Bauhaus School), Alberto Magnelli and Serge Poliakoff. Francis Bacon’s study for a portrait of his life partner George Dyer, which has been exhibited in numerous art museums around the world, is one of the internationally best-known works in the collection of the foundation. Rebirth, an installation by Edward Kienholtz, who was a representative of 1970s neo-realism, and Mysteriously Yours, a collage by the pop artist Martial Raysse are likewise both among the most iconic works of the collection.

New acquisitions by foreign artists included works created by Eggert Pétursson from Iceland and the Americans Ross Bleckner, Mark Francis and Marc Swanson. Finnish contemporary art was represented by the sculptors Jaakko Himanen and Veikko Hirvimäki and painters and draughtsmen like Arto Korhonen, Jani Leinonen, Jarmo Mäkilä, Leena Nio, Tamara Piilola, Stiina Saaristo, Osmo Rauhala and Kari Vehosalo.