The Persten Collection of Contemporary Art was formed in 2002 by Unione Oy Ltd. As the most important collection of post Soviet contemporary, high quality, original art prints, Persten has assumed the responsibility of preserving the works of art as a mirror of this significant moment in history for the Russian artists and the Russian public. And of course for the international art lovers, too.

Because all the printing work is done in Helsinki , Finland , it is natural to include some internationally established, young Finnish artists too for the print collection. Please, enjoy the result.

The Russian artists represented in the collection include the late Timur Novikov, the founder of the New Academia movement in St. Petersburg, Sergei Bugaev Afrika , one of the most internationally known artist of his generation, the late Dmitry Prigov: poet, artist, performance artist, sots-artist (a mix of socialist realism and pop art) and "the patriarch of Muscovite conceptualism", the painters Gyorgy Gurianov, Konstantin Reunov, Andrei Medvedev, Irena Kuksenaite., Olga Tobreluts , photographs and installations of Aleksander Tokarev, New Icons of Oleg Yanushevski, artists who have been working in isolation like scrap metal artist group Rechniki (River men), or in small groups for years such as Alexander & Olga Florensky (Mitki Group), and artists such as Daria Fursey, who are beginning their careers.

Since 2005 we started to publish art print editions, when we realised that this kind of activity was missing in the contemporary art scene of Russia . Persten Collection aims to satisfy the global interest and curiosity of other cultures too by publishing high quality, original, limited run, signed and numbered silkscreen art editions – original screenprints.

Prints from the Persten Collection are in collections of The State Russian Museum, The Hermitage (St. Petersburg), The State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow) and 10 other important Russian museums, as well as for example in the collection of MOCA, The Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles).