ESPOO.- EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art presents the long-awaited retrospective dedicated to Howard Smith (1928–2021). Best known for his printed fabrics for Vallila and ceramics for Arabia, Smith was also an exceptionally versatile artist who worked across painting, collage, papercuts, sculpture, textiles and public art. Bringing together around 90 works from 1965 to 2010, the exhibition reveals the breadth of Smith’s practice and his lasting impact on Finnish visual culture.
Born in New Jersey, Howard Smith arrived in Finland in the early 1960s for what was intended to be a short visit. Instead, he made the country his home. Throughout a career spanning five decades, Smith was driven by curiosity and a constant openness to experimentation. He moved seamlessly between art and design, from intimate works on paper to large-scale commissions for urban spaces, approaching each new material as an opportunity to explore its possibilities. While generations of Finns have encountered his work in their homes and everyday surroundings, the artist behind these familiar designs remains less widely known.
“What makes Howard Smith such a compelling artist is the way he allowed ideas to move freely from one medium to another. A motif might begin as a papercut before reappearing in printed fabric, ceramics or a large-scale plywood cut-out. Bringing these works together reveals not only the extraordinary range of his work, but also the coherence of his artistic vision,” says exhibition curator Tuomas Laulainen.
Works on paper were central to Smith’s artistic practice. His papercuts became a testing ground for ideas, while serigraphy allowed him to bring his art to wider audiences. Over the decades, he developed a distinctive visual language defined by bold colours and recurring motifs, including playful abstract forms as well as faces, eyes and fragments of text. Alongside these works, the exhibition presents ceramics, textile art, sculpture and rarely seen paintings and collages, showing how Smith’s ideas evolved across different materials throughout his career.
As an African American artist who built his life and career in Finland, Smith occupies a unique place in Finnish art and design history. His work broadens our understanding of Finnish modernism while reflecting the cultural exchange that has shaped the country’s artistic landscape. Works from the Africa series, created during his brief return to the United States in the late 1970s, reflect his renewed engagement with African American culture and the visual language of the African diaspora, opening new perspectives on identity, belonging, cultural exchange and representation.
The exhibition also features newly commissioned works by artist Sasha Huber (b. 1975) and fashion designer Ervin Latimer (b. 1988), placing Smith’s legacy in dialogue with contemporary artistic practice. Presented as part of EMMA’s 20th anniversary programme, the retrospective reflects the museum’s commitment to broadening perspectives on Finnish art and design history and bringing renewed attention to artists whose work continues to resonate today.
Howard Smith: Retrospective (1965–2010) is on view at EMMA from September 5, 2026 to February 7, 2027. The exhibition is curated by Tuomas Laulainen and Mariia Niskavaara. Howard Smith’s printed fabrics are simultaneously on display in EMMA’s Draped – Art of Printed Fabrics until November 1, 2026.
