Image: EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art
Collection Kakkonen’s exhibition will gain a new section devoted to ceramic artist Gerda Thesleff at the end of the year. The presentation is scheduled to run from 25 November 2026 through 28 November 2027, and it will be the first museum exhibition of Thesleff’s work. The exhibition is curated by ceramic artist Åsa Hellman and art historian Hanna-Reetta Schreck.
Thesleff is identified as one of the earliest artists represented in Collection Kakkonen and as a pioneer of Finnish ceramics. She was one of Finland’s first studio potters, and her individual style continues to inspire contemporary ceramic artists 100 years later. Although she pursued a long independent career as a ceramic artist, she has remained in art history in the shadow of her famous sister.
Thesleff treated the surfaces of her hand-thrown vessels like canvases, painting imagery with free brushstrokes. The ceramic imagery includes olive groves, cypress-covered hills and landscapes filled with grapevines.
Many of the subjects and colours in her work came from journeys and life in Tuscany shared with her sister, visual artist Ellen Thesleff. Gerda studied at the Central School of Industrial Art from 1898 to 1906 and continued her studies under Alfred William Finch, known for his Iris ceramics.
Gerda and Ellen Thesleff lived an international and artistic life in which travel and changes of place offered ways to challenge norms and absorb new influences.
