The Tikanoja Art Museum
Hovioikeudenpuistikko 4
65100 Vaasa Finland
Phone +358 6 325 3916
Fax +358 6 325 3918
Closed on Mondays
Tuesday—Saturday:
11 AM to 4 PM
Sunday: 12 AM — 5 PM
Welcome!
Tikanoja Art Museum is the previous home of Mr. Frithjof Tikanoja (1877-1964), a well known businessman in Vaasa. Mr. Tikanoja had fallen in love with fine arts in the late 1910s and immediately started collecting paintings and drawings. The art museum was founded when Mr. Tikanoja donated his art collection to the city in 1951.
The Tikanoja collection is especially famous for its international section containing works e.g. by Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. The collection also includes Finnish art from the 19th and 20th centuries. Traditional masters, such as Albert Edelfelt, Axel Gallen-Kallela, Maria Wiik and Tyko Sallinen are included in the collection as well as younger artists.
Mr. Tikanoja also acted as a patron for the painter Eemu Myntti. His art in the 1920s was against the traditional and widely accepted Finnish art policy because he enjoyed working in the French expressionistic style.
The Tikanoja Art Museum arranges several exhibitions annually, based on both national and international themes of interest. The Art Museum is also the location for chamber concerts.
Upcoming exhibitions 2010:
Floromania
June 12 - August 29 2010
Tikanoja Art Museum breaks out in bloom when the museum is taken over by floral and botanical artworks from Estonian art collections. Floromania explores thematically the flower fever of artists from the Baroque to the present. The mysteries of flowers are unveiled through more than a hundred artworks.
Challenging the apparent simplicity of floral motifs, the Floromania exhibition examines the role of flowers and plants in visual art. In older art, flowers were read as religious or mythological symbols. The language of flowers has subsequently become secular, yet flowers still remind us of Paradise, the Garden of Eden. In portraits, a flower often emphasises the beauty and virtuousness of its bearer. For another sitter, it may symbolise power and position, or hint at secrets, or flagrantly reveal its bearer's voluptuousness. In traditional floral still lifes, flowers either engage dutifully in dialogue with the other objects or dominate the picture by their regal splendour. Apart from artists, also scientists and craftsmen have been fascinated by flowers. The starting point of their gaze may be different, but are the final results so very different after all?
The exhibition is produced in cooperation with the Art Museum of Estonia. Most of the works are on loan from the collections of the KUMU, Kadriorg and Tartu art museums as well as the Tallinn City Museum and the Tartu University Library. The show includes work by several major names from Estonian art history, including Adamson-Eric, Johann Köler, Karin Luts and Kristjan Raud.
Rare 18th-century hand-tinted copper engravings from herbariums in the library of Åbo Akademi and magnificent porcelain and craft items from the Museum Centre of Turku and Ostrobotnian Museum tell their own, parallel story of the incontestable beauty and everlasting charm of flowers.