Akseli Gallen-Kallela

Template:Short description Template:Infobox artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela (born Axel Waldemar Gallén; 26 April 1865 – 7 March 1931) was a Finnish painter who is best known for his illustrations of the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic. His work is considered a very important aspect of the Finnish national identity. He finnicized his name from Gallén to Gallen-Kallela in 1907.Template:Sfn

Life and career

Early life

Gallen-Kallela was born on 26 April 1865, in Pori, to a Swedish-speaking family. His father Peter Gallén worked as police chief and lawyer.Template:Sfn Gallen-Kallela was raised in Tyrvää.Template:Sfn At age 11, he was sent to Helsinki to study at a grammar school, because his father opposed his ambition to become a painter. After his father's death in 1879, Gallen-Kallela attended drawing classes at the Finnish Art Society (1881–1884) and studied privately under Adolf von Becker.Template:Sfn

Paris

File:Akseli Gallen-Kallela - Self-Portrait at the Easel.jpg

Self-Portrait at the Easel, 1885

In 1884, he moved to Paris, to study at the Académie Julian.Template:Sfn In Paris he became friends with the Finnish painter Albert Edelfelt, the Norwegian painter Carl Dørnberger, and the Swedish writer August Strindberg.Template:Sfn During this period he traveled back and forth between Finland and Paris.Template:Sfn

Mary Slöör

File:Akseli Gallen-Kallela - Problem (Symposium).jpg

Problem (Symposium) depicting Gallen-Kallela himself, Oskar Merikanto, Robert Kajanus and Jean Sibelius, 1894 (fi)

File:Akseli Gallen-Kallela - Self-Portrait in Fresco.jpg

Self-Portrait in Fresco, 1894

He married Mary Slöör in 1890. The couple had three children: Impi Marjatta, Kirsti and Jorma. On their honeymoon to East Karelia, Gallen-Kallela started collecting material for his depictions of the Kalevala. His work during this period is characterized by romantic paintings of the Kalevala, such as the Aino Myth, and by several landscape paintings, although by 1894 the influence of symbolism is heavily visible in his works.Template:Sfn

Berlin and tragedy

File:Akseli Gallen-Kallela - Self-portrait ’en face’.jpg

Self-Portrait ’en face’, 1897

In December 1894, Gallen-Kallela moved to Berlin to oversee the joint exhibition of his works with the works of Norwegian painter Edvard Munch. At the time Gallen-Kallela also designed a grand cabin called Kalela for his family far from everything on the shore of Lake Ruovesi. It was built from dead standing pine by 13 local carpenters in a year from 1894 to 1895.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

In March 1895, his trip was ended when he received a telegram that his daughter Impi Marjatta had died from diphtheria, which would prove to be a turning point in his work. Hs works had been romantic, but after his daughter's death, Gallen-Kallela's works became more aggressive. From 1896 to 1899, he painted what are considered his most famous works: The Defense of the Sampo, Lemminkäinen's Mother, Joukahainen's Revenge and Kullervo's Curse.Template:Sfn In May 1895, Gallen and Mary visited London, with his intent being the purchase of a graphic art press. There, he also learned about stained glass. At the end of 1897 the family took a trip to Florence, also visiting Pompeii, where he studied the art of frescoes.Template:Sfn

Paris 1900 Exposition

For the Paris World Fair in 1900, Gallen-Kallela painted frescoes for the Finnish Pavilion.Template:Sfn In the fresco Ilmarinen Plowing the Field of Vipers there was a hidden political message: one of the vipers is wearing a small Romanov crown,Template:Sfn telling of Gallen-Kallela's wish for an independent Finland at the time of the Russification of Finland.

The Paris Exposition secured Gallen-Kallela's stature as the leading Finnish artist.Template:Sfn In 1901, he was commissioned to paint the fresco, Kullervo Sets Off for War, for the concert hall of the Helsinki Student's Union.Template:Sfn Between 1901 and 1903, he painted the frescoes for the Jusélius Mausoleum in Pori, memorializing the 11-year-old daughter of the industrialist Fritz Arthur Jusélius. (The frescoes however were soon damaged by dampness, and were completely destroyed by fire in December 1931. Jusélius assigned the artist's son Jorma to repaint them from the original sketches.Template:Sfn The reconstruction was completed just before Jorma's death in 1939.)Template:Sfn

Gallen-Kallela officially finnicized his name to Akseli Gallen-Kallela in 1907.Template:Sfn His idea for a 700-page Template:Ill was fully formed in 1909 with a publication of his plan in the Valvoja magazine.Template:Sfn

Kenya

File:Sigurd Wettenhovi-Aspa - Akseli Gallen-Kallela After Returning From Africa.jpg

Akseli Gallen-Kallela After Returning From Africa by Sigurd Wettenhovi-Aspa in 1911

File:Akseli Gallen-Kallela - Self-Portrait for the Uffizi Gallery.jpg

Self-Portrait for the Uffizi Gallery, 1916

In 1908, with renewal in mind, Gallen-Kallela and his family moved to Paris. However the city and the new direction art was being taken didn't feel as hospitable as he had hoped, and so in May 1909 they moved much further away to Nairobi in Kenya. He was the first Finnish artist to paint south of the Sahara, and produced over 150 expressionistic works. Although artistically the paintings are of fluctuating quality, their colors and the synergy of the colors are remarkable. They returned to Finland in February 1911.Template:Sfn Between 1911 and 1913, he designed and built a studio and house for his family at Tarvaspää, approximately 10 km northwest of the centre of Helsinki.Template:Sfn

Finnish Civil War

File:Akseli Gallen-Kallela luutnantin univormussaan Suomen sisällissodan aikana 1918.jpg

Gallen-Kallela in his lieutenant uniform during the civil war, 1918

File:Ilya Repin - Portrait of A. Gallen-Kallela.jpg

Portrait of A. Gallen-Kallela, Ilya Repin, 1920

The family moved back from Tarvaspää to Kalela in 1915 to escape the turmoil of the First World War. In 1918, Gallen-Kallela and his son Jorma took part in the fighting at the front of the Finnish Civil War. When the regent, General Mannerheim, heard about that, he invited Gallen-Kallela to design the flags, official decorations and uniforms for the newly independent Finland. For the flag, Gallen-Kallela proposed a white-blue cross flag, with colors inverted (white cross on blue), but it was considered too similar to the Swedish flag and particularly the era's Greek flag. In 1919, he was appointed aide-de-camp to Mannerheim.Template:Sfn In 1920, he made an agreement with the publishing company WSOY for the eventual publication of Great Kalevala, with the less decorative Koru-Kalevala being published first in 1922.Template:Sfn

Taos, New Mexico, later life, and death

File:Akseli Gallen-Kallela ja Kansallismuseon fresko Sammon puolustus 1928.jpg

Gallen-Kallela in the National Museum of Finland in front of his fresco version of The Defense of the Sampo, 1928

In December 1923, he moved to the United States, where his family followed him in autumn 1924. He first spent time in Chicago, and an exhibition of his work toured several cities.Template:Sfn In Chicago, he was impressed by Native American art and moved to Taos, New Mexico, at the art colony there to study it further. During his time in the United States, he began sketching out the Great Kalevala in much more detail. In May 1926, the family returned to Finland. In 1928, together with his son Jorma he painted the Kalevala frescoes at the lobby of the National Museum of Finland. In 1930, he made an agreement to paint a gigantic fresco for the bank Kansallis-Osake-Pankki, but on 7 March 1931, while returning from a lecture in Copenhagen, he suddenly died of pneumonia in Stockholm.Template:Sfn

Legacy

His studio and house at Tarvaspää was opened as the Gallen-Kallela Museum in 1961 and house some of his works and research facilities on him.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

File:Gallen-Kallela Museum in winter.jpg

Gallen-Kallela Museum in Tarvaspää

See also

• Golden Age of Finnish Art
• Finnish art

External links

• List of all paintings by Gallen-Kallela on Commons
• Gallen-Kallela Museum website
• Template:BLF