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Press Release, March 2025 This May, twelve painters will graduate from the Free Art School, Finland’s only institution solely dedicated to painting. Their graduation works will be showcased in the Vapaa '25 exhibition at Puristamo, Cable Factory in Helsinki, from May 3 to May 18, 2025. The opening r...
Launched a year ago and funded by the European Union, the Erasmus+ project has progressed as planned. The student group from the Free Art School that visited Iceland had the opportunity to exhibit their works and share their experiences in an exhibition and seminar held at Suomenlinna. The exhibitio...
Burning Rainbow Bridge is an exhibition inspired by the Free Art School’s fourth-year students’ study trip to Iceland in spring 2024. The trip took place as part of an Erasmus+ exchange project. The exhibition presents works by eleven art students. The paintings, drawings and other pieces on display...
The two-year Erasmus+ pilot project, funded by the European Union, aims to establish a network of painting-focused art schools across Europe. The initiative includes teacher exchanges between Finland and Iceland, student study trips between Helsinki and Reykjavík, and various collaborative activitie...
The 2023 Aïda Alliman Grant has been awarded to painter Erik Creutziger. Creutziger graduated from the Free Art School in 2007. Erik Creutziger:The atmosphere of my paintings is usually based on personal experience. I draw on flashes of memory – moments I’ve encountered during travels or even on eve...
The 2021 Aïda Alliman Grant has been awarded to painter Inkeri Halme. Halme (b. 1985), who lives and works in Helsinki, graduated from the Free Art School in 2020. “The grant allows me to work full-time on painting over the coming months. In addition to supporting my artistic work, I will use the g...
Painting has always held a self-evident place in art history as an expression of the timelessness of human existence — a mirror reflecting the poetic nature of our soul and imagination. Despite the persistent predictions in recent art history about the death of painting, this has not come to pass. ...
In the final Painting of the Month vote of the Spring Term 2025, students selected a work by Enna Saari as the winner.Saari is currently in her first year of studies. ArtistEnna Saari, born 2004Hometown: Heinola...
Maire Gullichsen was a true force and reformer in the art world of her time. The Free Art School in Helsinki was founded in 1935 at the initiative of Maire Gullichsen (née Ahlström). She studied at the school herself and later served as its director for many years. Educated in France, Gullichsen (19...
Founded in 1935, the Free Art School has played a role in the education of many renowned Finnish painters. Tove Jansson first participated in the school’s croquis evenings, where quick, sketch-like drawings are made from live models. In 1937, she enrolled as a full-time student. “She wanted to broad...
The Free Art School has served as a healthy counterbalance in Finnish art education for 85 years. At different times, that balance has been needed for different reasons. From the 1930s to the 1950s, the Free Art School represented the international modernism of painting, which the nationally incline...
Novia University of Applied Sciences and Free Art School see many new possibilities for cooperation in the art sector in Helsinki Novia University of Applied Sciences and Vapaa Taidekoulu - Free Art School have entered into a partnership agreement, which will give new opportunities for collaboration...
