In 2016 and 2017, the New Valamo Monastery in Heinävesi, Finland, attracted scandal for "selling mediocre works of art from a 'mysterious family' at outrageously high prices" and selling art forgeries to the public. Criminal convictions were brought against the main perpetrators.
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.
Background The Master's Imprint I In 2014–15, the New Valamo Monastery hosted an art exhibition called "The Master's Imprint." It was a "major exhibition of Christian-themed art by Finnish masters," as Savon Sanomat wrote. Among the artists' names were Helene Schjerfbeck, Albert Edelfelt, Hugo Simberg, Juho Rissanen, and Akseli Gallen-Kallela. The exhibition was curated by Vicar Bishop Arseni. Arseni. He had selected 76 works on Biblical themes from "the private collection of an Eastern Finnish family". The exhibition's spokesperson was a certain Jussi Savolainen. According to him
The exhibition attracted 7,300 visitors to Valamo, a record for exhibitions at the monastery. The owner family hoped that the exhibition would tour museums in Finland and possibly also abroad.
The Master's Imprint II In September 2015, the next exhibition, "The Master's Imprint II", opened in Valamo, which continued until May Day, 2016. According to Savon Sanomat, the exhibition was "a huge all-time success" for the monastery. In April 2016, the exhibition was said to have seen by 13,000 visitors, more than any previous exhibition at the monastery. The exhibition was said to have been "a runaway hit". It was speculated that the 15,000 visitor mark might be broken. That would have equaled the number of visitors to the Kuopio Art Museum during the year. "The exhibition has significantly brightened up Valamo's quiet winter season. We have never had it this busy before", commented Jaana Nykänen, Sales and Marketing Manager at Valamo.
The success was visible in the monastery's finances. The monastery's father superior, Archimandrite Sergei, noted that "visitors to the exhibition also use the monastery's other services, they eat in the restaurant and buy souvenirs. Many also take guided tours and others stay overnight. That brings income to the monastery. I haven't looked into the exact amounts, but I know that the economy is now in the black". Jussi Savolainen served as the guide for the exhibition. The mystical art collector family's collections were said to include over 300 works of art, which were loaned to the exhibitions free of charge. "If similar works had been acquired on loan from elsewhere, the costs would have been enormous," Sergei said.
A bus company from Nilsiä was said to have transported hundreds of visitors from Savo to the monastery. The monastery had built a package around the exhibition, which included a guided exhibition, a welcome moment, a guided visit to the main church, meals, a wine tour and afternoon coffee. Almost all groups were said to buy the package.
Just two and a half weeks after this exhibition, a new exhibition, "Via Finlandia", was opened at the monastery, again featuring the collections of a mystical family of collectors.
Via Finlandia exhibition 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. The exhibition was again curated by Arseni, who had selected over 70 works for the exhibition. "You could start a museum with this collection," Arseni said in praise of the exhibition.
Again, the works came from the same family as in the previous exhibitions, but now they were for sale. Arseni had selected the works for the exhibition from among 300 works on offer, and the works were mainly not religious. However, it was said that the family now had 350 of these works. The collection of secular art was said to be even larger.
"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".
The cheapest works in the exhibition were said to cost 4,000 euros and the most expensive one 600,000 euros. It was also mentioned that there were "international treats" at the exhibition, works of graphic by Pablo Picasso, Matisse and Miró.
The exhibition was said to have attracted attention in advance. "Many guided tours have already been booked. Collectors from even abroad have been in touch", said a spokesman for the monastery. The monastery was said to receive a share of the sales proceeds, but how they would be distributed was a trade secret. However, according to Archimandrite Sergei, it was "a good sum".
Arseni praised the exhibition volubly:
The organizers had already set their eyes on "Master's Imprint III" and "Via Finlandia II" exhibitions.
This time too, the condition for the exhibition was that the name of the owner family would remain a secret:
Helsingin Sanomat quoted Savon Sanomat as saying that the exhibition had been a "tremendous success": 18,000 guests had seen it.
2016–17 art sales The works in "Via Finlandia" were for sale. The exhibition received a lot of attention in the media, including YLE, which reported on the "amazing art collection", Kotimaa, Savon Sanomat ("Buy your own Edelfelt from Valamo").
Later, the exhibition and the sale of the works of art received a lot of attention in Helsingin Sanomat, Savon Sanomat ja Yle TV News and other media, and in the book Operation Fake (Crime Time, 2024) by the now retired detective Kimmo Nokkonen.
The exhibition featured and sold works by many well-known Finnish artists. In addition to the artists mentioned earlier, the artists included Eero Järnefelt, Hugo Simberg, Kain Tapper. There were also internationally renowned artists such as Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Salvador Dalí, Henri Matisse, Andy Warhol, and Rembrandt van Rijn.
Art origins According to the monastery, the works were owned by an "Eastern Finnish family" who did not want their name be made public. The family was represented by Jussi Savolainen, who denied that the works belonged to him or his family members. However, in 2019, Helsingin Sanomat learned that the key works in the exhibition had been acquired by Jussi Savolainen and his wife Sari Tikkanen in the 2000s, many of the works at auctions. They had a habit of buying inexpensive works by well-known artists. The owner of the works was listed in the sales documents as Tikkanen's company, but this was reportedly due to "tax reasons". Neither the monastery nor Bishop Arseni agreed to reveal the true owner of the works. 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. Archbishop Leo served as the honorary chairman of the Philanthropy. Nokkonen says in his book Operaatio Fake that the monastery received a third of the proceeds from the sales exhibition.
In 2018, Turun Sanomat bluntly stated that the "family story" behind the exhibition had been fabricated.
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 and Lappeenranta.
Graphic art "prints" Picasso's works in the exhibition included a lithograph depicting Jesus, among a few other Christian-themed works. 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. Nokkonen points out that Picasso was a well-known atheist, and his "three Christian-themed prints" were dated March 2, 1959, when he was almost 80 years old. Keskisuomalainen had said of one of the works that it was "a test print of a series of prints made from oil paintings." Nokkonen called a couple of experts, and it turned out that Picasso was not known to have made prints of his oil paintings. He got the impression that the sale included "works by Picasso that had never been seen before." Keskisuomalainen also said that "Picasso has adjusted the colours [of the work]." At Valamo, a visitor was told that "Picasso's Christian-themed works, previously unknown to art history, were created when Picasso experienced a brief religious awakening on March 2, 1959 and produced three Christian-themed lithographs."
The exhibition reported that Picasso's prints were test prints, in which the artist had adjusted the colours himself. The authenticity of the works was reportedly "verified by a French expert specializing in Picasso's graphics and that an appropriate guarantee certificate would be given to buyers of their authenticity." In his work, Nokkonen wonders that no one said who this "expert was and in whose name the certificates of authenticity were issued." Nokkonen also wonders, "how can an anonymous person guarantee anything at all?" Nor was it possible to draw any "conclusions about the size of the edition or the year of completion" based on the numbering of the work.
Nokkonen was in contact with people he considered experts, who believed that
Investigation into "graphic prints" 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. "We are investigating gross forgeries, counterfeiters and fraudsters," Detective Superintendent Kauko Kuismin told Yle. The National Gallery had examined eight works and found them to be inkjet prints, or fakes. Savolainen said that 10–20 of these works had been sold, worth perhaps 80,000 euros. Yle reported that Savolainen was one of the two suspects.Yle TV News, 7 May 2018.
Regarding the Valamo prints, the National Bureau of Investigation was not interested in opening an investigation. However, a solution was found in the matter regarding the resale compensation for fine art. The resale royalty should be paid through the Copyright Information and Control Centre (TTVK) to the artist or, after his or her death, to the holder of rights for 70 years, i.e. as long as the copyright is valid. No such payments had been made from the Valamo sales exhibition. TTVK made a test purchase in Valamo, purchasing Aimo Kanerva's work for 3,300 euros. 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. Saxton Oy had been engaged in professional art tradeg since at least 2003, but it had never paid anything to TTVK, which knew nothing about the existence of such a company.
Saxton's deadline for paying the TTVK was January 2017. When no payment was made, TTVK and Kuvasto filed a criminal report with the Eastern Finland Police Department. Now it was necessary to start an investigation.
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. Eight "graphic prints" were confiscated and examined by the National Gallery. The result of the investigation was that the prints in question were inkjet prints that could be dated to the years 1990–2010. All of the artists in question had died before this, so the signatures on the prints were forgeries.