A Finnish Artist and the Apartment and Paintings She Left Behind in SoHo

When Iria Leino, a Finnish-born painter, died at 89, the rent on her 4,000-square-foot loft in a former knitting factory in SoHo was $650 a month.

Ms. Leino (pronounced LAY-no) lived in the same building complex from 1966 until her death of leukemia in 2022. She moved to 133 Greene Street in 1966, when the district was a rubbly artists’ refuge. Later, she relocated to a sixth-floor unit in the building next door (both cast-iron structures were combined into a single co-op, 133-137 Greene Street, in the late 1970s. The entrance — and current address — is at 135 Greene Street). As high-fashion boutiques sprouted around her and her neighbors bought and renovated some of the most expensive property in the city, she collected the refunds from cans and bottles and later relied on subsidies from a charitable organization to stay afloat.

Today, a 2,100-square-foot unit in the co-op rents for $12,500 per month. Ms. Leino was busy accumulating her own kind of treasure. At her death, she left more than 1,000 artworks that she had made over half a century.

Both the artist and her works are now objects of wonder. On Sept. 4, Harper’s Gallery, in Manhattan, will exhibit a small selection of Ms. Leino’s canvases. Peter Hastings Falk, an art historian and independent curator, who is managing the collection for the Iria Leino Trust, said, “We’re making the bold statement, which I think is true, that she’s the first woman abstract painter from Finland, in America.”

And the loft has attracted not just art dealers, but also documentary filmmakers and Finnish cultural officials entranced by its time-capsule quality.