Ritva-Liisa Pohjalainen – Touch of Beauty

Ritva-Liisa Pohjalainen – Touch of Beauty

Designer Ritva-Liisa Pohjalainen’s comprehensive anniversary exhibition compellingly showcases the creator’s uncompromising attitude, astonishing versatility, ability to adapt and passion for beauty.

The Kimmo Pyykkö Art Museum’s comprehensive anniversary exhibition takes its viewers on a dizzying journey through time that explores the wondrous uniqueness, versatility and beauty of Finnish design. The abundant collection includes stunning art glass works, silver jewellery, unique evening gowns, miniatures, ryijy rugs, ceramics and steel sculptures.

On the first floor of the art museum, you can return to the golden age of fashion design starting in the 1970’s, when Finnish outfits also graced international catwalks and the pages of international fashion publications. The exhibition’s outfits and hundreds of images and drawings bring to life iconic Finnish labels of yesteryear, such as Piretta, Silo, Kestilä, Finn Flare and P.T.A. and the designer collection Ril´s, complemented by unique dresses seen at Independence Day receptions as well as Finnair staff uniforms created after her design contest win.

It is astonishing that behind every piece and drawing is one creator, glass artist and designer Ritva-Liisa Pohjalainen. The exhibition is thus an impressive cross-section of Pohjalainen’s over 50-year career. The oldest works are from 1974, when Pohjalainen graduated as a fashion designer from the University of Art and Design Helsinki.

The exhibition illustrates Pohjalainen’s diligence and capacity to adapt. Early in her career, she worked in all of Finland’s leading companies in the clothing industry and created 2,500 clothing designs in nine years just for PTA. Pohjalainen calculates that when you include the outfits in her Ril’s label, her collections have been the most-bought women’s clothes in Finland. Business was also brisk abroad: “I remember the joy that I felt years ago, when even in Stockholm nearly every other passer-by seemed to be wearing a jacket I had designed”, Pohjalainen recalls her career, smiling.

Later, Pohjalainen graduated as a glass and ceramics designer and familiarised herself with precious metals. Women’s outfits gave way to art glass, ceramics and silver jewellery. Some of the glass works on display were created in Murano, Italy, in collaboration with world-famous glassblowers. In autumn 2024, Pohjalainen surprised her audience once again by designing and bringing steel works to Habitare.

The art museum’s second floor will feature works completed in the last two decades, the latest of which include glass-steel sculptures. “The subject changes, but the creativity remains. It flows from one material to another. Each new material teaches something new and lays the foundation for new ideas and works”, she explains and notes that behind every work – regardless of the material – there is always a lengthy, sometimes even difficult, design process.

Pohjalainen has had the good fortune to find skilful people to bring her designs to life. The unique art glass works require as many as seven glassblowers working simultaneously. There is also an enormous amount of technical work and numerous stages of craftsmanship behind the steel sculptures.

Although the materials have changed, her recognisable, minimalistic style has endured throughout her career. The design language stems from Pohjalainen’s childhood landscapes: the seashore at Raahe, North Ostrobothnia. The low, round cliffs, the smooth-polished stones, the rippling waves, the supple reeds and the bounty of the forest – these shapes can be found both in the fluttering cloth and in the airily bending steel.

In recognition of her work, Pohjalainen received the Kaj Frank Design Prize in 2004, the Finnish fashion industry prize Kultainen vaatepuu in 1998 as well as an honorary doctorate from the University of Eastern Finland in 2010, among others.

Ritva-Liisa Pohjalainen – Touch of Beauty exhibition is on display on the 1st and 2nd floors of the Kimmo Pyykkö Art Museum’s 30.01.–23.05.2027.