"In Finland from the latter half of the nineteenth century, there was a movement to become independent from Russia and a new state was formed in 1917. In step with this revolutionary change, the position and role of women in the society advanced on an unprecedented scale. In the art world, too, the first art school established in Finland in the mid-nineteenth promoted equal art education for men and women from its founding. Women had access to scholarships or studying abroad and they could pave the way as an artist in an international environment. This exhibition introduces seven Finnish women artists who lived in that period pursuing independent careers and their own new artistic expressions throughout their lives."--back cover