Valamo Monastery art sales scandal

[1][2][3][4] According to the comment of Asta Tenhunen, a journalist for Savon Sanomat, "the exhibition scandal is a very serious matter in terms of how carelessly power and the use of a good name have been given to use by an outsider" in a national church, which has a special status in the state, for example with regard to legislation.

Among the artists' names were Helene Schjerfbeck, Albert Edelfelt, Hugo Simberg, Juho Rissanen, and Akseli Gallen-Kallela.

[9] In mid-May 2016, the "Via Finlandia" exhibition opened in Valamo, with which the monastery wanted to celebrate the centennial of the Independence of Finland.

[10] "It's not worth going out to the exhibition with a thin wallet," wrote Savon Sanomat, noting that the exhibition featured works by, among others, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Juho Rissanen, Maria Wiik, Tyko Sallinen, Albert Edelfelt, Robert Wilhelm Ekman and Väinö Aaltonen, adding that "this art can not be bought for a pittance".

Ekman, Tyko Sallinen, Rissanen and Edelfelt would be welcomed into the collection of any museum.The organizers had already set their eyes on "Master's Imprint III" and "Via Finlandia II" exhibitions.

[10] This time too, the condition for the exhibition was that the name of the owner family would remain a secret:[10] Making the name of the owners public would not add any value to the collection; on the contrary, it would lead people's interest to a completely wrong and insignificant matter and away from the purpose of the collection.Helsingin Sanomat quoted Savon Sanomat as saying that the exhibition had been a "tremendous success": 18,000 guests had seen it.

The exhibition received a lot of attention in the media, including YLE,[11] which reported on the "amazing art collection", Kotimaa,[12] Savon Sanomat ("Buy your own Edelfelt from Valamo").

There were also internationally renowned artists such as Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Salvador Dalí, Henri Matisse, Andy Warhol, and Rembrandt van Rijn.

The monastery and the Philanthropy Association, which had been announced to channel the proceeds to the victims of the war in Syria, received a commission from the sales.

[15] More works from the Valamo "Via Finlandia" exhibition from the collections of a mysterious Eastern Finnish art collector family were sold in different locations in Finland at Orthodox church premises, e.g. in Pori[16] and Lappeenranta.

Bishop Arseni stated in an interview published by YLE in September 2015 that Picasso's Christian-themed works were "a real curiosity" in his production.

There was reason to suspect that counterfeit graphics were being sold in the Valamo Monastery and in exhibitions organized in various parts of Finland.

It was obvious that several crimes had already been committed in this matter, and more would committed if the police did not intervene quickly.A day after the Turun Sanomat article, on May 7, Yle TV news reported that the graphic works by Picasso, Henri Matisse and Marc Chagall that were on sale at the exhibition, which had been sold as "test prints", were counterfeit inkjet prints.

In the documents relating to the transaction, the ownership of the work was stated to be Saxton Oy, whose CEO, sole board member and shareholder was Sari Tikkanen, Jussi Savolainen's spouse.

When no payment was made, TTVK and Kuvasto filed a criminal report with the Eastern Finland Police Department.

[14] Almost 30 works signed in the name of Picasso, Matisse and Chagall had been sold from Valamo and other exhibitions held in the premises of the Finnish Orthodox Church.

[2] During the trial, it emerged that Savolainen had purchased the "graphic prints" on eBay "from a person he considered trustworthy, Chris Brooks, who used the username 'brooksie2000' on the trading portal."

"[19] Nokkonen states the following about the most expensive work in the exhibition:[19] The unsigned painting depicts Elli Jäppinen, known as Edelfelt's model, in the national costume of Ruokolahti, by a flowing rapid.

Marina Catani, the leading expert on Edelfelt's catalogue, has stated that the work is an impressionistically painted colour sketch.

However, the sale in question was based on gross fraud.According to Nokkonen, Odotus is not "a gem in Edelfelt's catalogue that would fit in any museum," as Bishop Arseni had said in an interview with Savon Sanomat.

Archimandrite Sergei told Helsingin Sanomat about the results of the sale that "I have not studied the exact amounts, but I know that the economy is now in the black.

At the end of August 2019, the headline on the newspaper's main news page was "The story of the family art collection was invented."

The artworks in the sales exhibitions that toured Finland were owned by an art store in Kuopio, and some of them were later found to be fakes, some were just printed posters.

The Savon Sanomat article was related to a trial that began in Kuopio in the fall of 2019, in which the people behind the art exhibitions were accused of fraud and forgery, and the female party of aggravated embezzlement.

The list was vague and incomplete compared to many other exhibitions.In the case of Picasso, a technique was mentioned that no art historian had ever heard of.

The buyers did not know that the works had not been evaluated by any art expert, and that the information had been entered in the brochures from internet searches.

He hoped that the police would investigate the matter to the end, in order to find out "how the reputation of the Orthodox Church was used in the sales activities of a single art dealer.

When she asked him "about his responsibility for the exhibition," Arseni replied:[5] I have not collaborated with them [the art dealer couple] except in Valamo, and not even with them there, but only with the Valamo monastery.The journalist said that she would write that Arseni had collaborated with the Kuopio couple for at least ten years, at which time he "threatened her with the Council for Mass Media in Finland, forbade the use of his entire interview and accused the journalist of spreading false information."

However, he had appeared in the church newspaper Aamun Koitto in an article promoting the exhibition, along with "a fake Picasso work and other paintings of exceptionally poor quality".

That's what you think, Bukowski and Hagelstam don't sell fakes.Archimandrite Sergei informed Savon Sanomat that in the future the Valamo Monastery will investigate the backgrounds of its partners more closely and will carefully ensure that its name is not associated with dishonest projects.