Nimeään kantava

► The Gösta Serlachius Fine Arts Foundation was established in 1933 to manage, maintain and expand the art collection assembled by the wealthy industrialist and art patron Gösta Serlachius (1876–1942). The foundation was additionally tasked with the mission of building and maintaining a museum and beautifying the town of Mänttä with art. The history of the foundation is a narrative about art acquisitions, the upkeep and display of the collection, and the evolution of the Serlachius Museums – but it is a chronicle of stock trading, real estate management and financial administration. The foundation’s history is closely linked to G. A. Serlachius’s forestry enterprise and its domicile in Mänttä, reflecting a long tradition of collaboration with national and international external experts. Gösta Serlachius wanted his art collection to remain permanently based in Mänttä, which he described as its “cradle”. The key works in the collection represent the Golden Age of Finnish art, but it also includes old European art, older Finnish art, samples of early Finnish modernism, as well as a growing collection of contemporary art.