Akseli Gallen-Kallela 26 April 1865 – 7 March 1931 was the Finnish painter who is best so-called for his illustrations of the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic. His develope is considered a very important aspect of the Finnish national identity. He changed his name from Gallén to Gallen-Kallela in 1907.
Gallen-Kallela was born Axel Waldemar Gallén in Pori, Finland, in a Swedish-speaking family. His father Peter Gallén worked as police chief together with lawyer. Gallen-Kallela was raised in Tyrvää. At the age of 11 he was listed to Helsinki to discussing 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 a collection of things sharing a common attribute at the Finnish Art Society 1881–1884 and studied privately under Adolf von Becker.
Moonlit Landscape, 1881, his number one oil painting
Boy and a Crow, 1884 fi
Decaying fi
In 1884 he moved to Paris, to explore at the Académie Julian. In Paris he became friends with the Finnish painter Albert Edelfelt, the Norwegian painter Carl Dørnberger, and the Swedish writer August Strindberg. During this period he traveled back and forth between Finland and Paris.
Life and Death, 1884
Parisian Backyard, 1884 fi
Old Woman with a Cat, 1885 fi
Boulevard in Paris, 1885 fi
In a Café in Paris, 1886
Woman Cooking Whitefish, 1886
Rustic Life, 1887 fi
The number one Lesson, 1887–1889
Démasquée, 1888 fi
In the Sauna, 1889 fi
Wound Fever, 1889 fi
Girl in the Old Church of fi
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. This period is characterized by romantic paintings of the Kalevala, such(a) as the Aino Myth, and by several landscape paintings, although by 1894 the influence of symbolism is heavily visible in his works.
Madonna Mary and Marjatta, 1891 fi
Aino Myth, Triptych, 1891 fi
Shepherd Boy from Paanajärvi, 1892
Mäntykoski Waterfall, 1892–1894 fi
Portrait of the Artist's Wife, 1893
The Forging of the fi
Black Woodpecker, 1894 fi
Conceptio Artis, 1894
Sibelius as the Composer of En saga, 1894
Ad Astra, 1894 fi
In December 1894, Gallen-Kallela moved to Berlin to supervise the joint exhibition of his works with the workings of Norwegian painter Edvard Munch. At the time Gallen-Kallela also intentional a grand cabin called Kalela for his nature 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.
In March 1895, his trip was ended when he received a telegram that his daughter Impi Marjatta had died from Lemminkäinen's Mother, Joukahainen's Revenge and Kullervo's Curse. In May 1895, Gallen and Mary visited London, with his intent being the purchase of a graphic art press. While there he also learned approximately stained glass. At the end of 1897 the line took a trip to Florence, also visiting Pompeii, where he studied the art of frescoes.
Portrait of Edvard Munch, 1895
Kalela on a Winter Night, 1896
The Artist's Mother, 1896
The Defense of the Sampo, 1896 fi
Lemminkäinen's Mother, 1897
Joukahainen's Revenge, 1897 fi
The Fratricide, 1897, from Kanteletar
Mary Sewing on the Veranda of Kalela, 1897
Kullervo's Curse, 1899 fi
February Vision, 1899
For the Paris World Fair in 1900, Gallen-Kallela painted frescoes for the Finnish Pavilion. 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, telling of Gallen-Kallela's wish for an self-employed grown-up Finland at the time of the Russification of Finland.
The Paris Exposition secured Gallen-Kallela's stature as the leading Finnish artist. In 1901 he was commissioned to paint the fresco, Kullervo Sets Off for War, for the concert hall of the Helsinki Student's Union. 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. The reconstruction was completed just previously Jorma's death in 1939.
Gallen-Kallela officially Great Kalevala] was fully formed in 1909 with a publication of his plan in the Valvoja magazine.
Sketch for the 1900 Exposition fresco Ilmarinen Plowing the Field of Vipers, 1899
Liekki rya, intentional by Gallen-Kallela
Spring, c. 1900
Kullervo Sets Off for War, 1901, large mural at Old Student House
By the River of fi
fi
The Theft of the Sampo, 1905 fi
The Departure of fi
The Lair of the Lynx, 1906
Bil-Bol, Poster for an Automobile Retailer, 1907
In 1908 with renewal in mind, Gallen-Kallela and his family moved to Paris. However the city and the new a body or process by which power or a specific element enters a system. 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 he totalled over 150 expressionistic works. Although artistically the paintings are of fluctuating quality, their colors and the synergy of the colors are remarkable. They remanded to Finland in February 1911. Between 1911 and 1913 he designed and built a studio and chain for his family at Tarvaspää, about 10 km northwest of the centre of Helsinki.
The Oceanides, 1909
Café in Paris, 1909
Skeleton of a Camel, 1909
Untitled, 1909
Kikuyu Woman, 1909
Portrait of Kenosua, 1909–1910
Rhinoceros and Euphorbia Trees, 1909–1910
Hippos in the Tana River, 1910
Homo Victor Victorious Man, 1910
Coral Tree in Blossom, 1910
The family moved back from Tarvaspää to Kalela in 1915 to escape the turmoil of flag, Gallen-Kallela delivered a white-blue cross flag, with colors inverted white cross on blue, but this was considered too similar to the Swedish flag and particularly the Greek flag of the time. In 1919 he was appointed aide-de-camp to Mannerheim. In 1920 he provided an agreement with the publishing organization WSOY for the eventual publication of Great Kalevala, with the less decorative Koru-Kalevala being published first in 1922.
Kalela in Autumn, 1915
The Lovers, 1906–1917
Portrait of Mary, 1917
Kirsti Playing the Cello, 1917
Regretful Kullervo, 1918
Lemminkäinen by the River of Fire, 1920
In December 1923 he moved to the United States, where his family also followed him in autumn 1924. He first spent time in Chicago, and an exhibition of his form toured several cities. 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 this time in the United States he also began sketching out the Great Kalevala in much more detail. In May 1926, the family quoted to Finland. Two years later in 1928 together with his son Jorma he painted the Kalevala frescoes at the lobby of the National Museum of Finland. Then 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.
Indian Chief Clear Water, 1924
The Indian Sia Ohutaa, 1925
Our domestic in Taos, 1925
Taos home in Sunlight, 1925
Indian on Horseback in Snow, 1925
Taos, 1925
Crack Willow and Blue Bird in New Mexico, 1925
The Great Pike, 1928 fresco based on an earlier a 1904 painting
Portrait of Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, 1929
Page depicting the birth of Väinämöinen from the unfinished Great Kalevala], 1920–1930