On this page you can view selected works from the collection.
Hugo Simberg
(1873–1917)
Devil on a Swing, 1907
Hugo Simberg’s oil painting merges a realistic landscape with a symbolist pair of beings from the artist’s imagination, playing on a swing. The setting is Säkkijärvi on Vyborg Bay, where the Simberg family had a manor house, Niemenlautta. Simberg spent many summers painting in Niemenlautta. The beings on the swing are the artist’s alter ego, a troll of sorts, and a girl dressed in white that some see as an angel. The scene has been interpreted as a balancing of good vs. evil but, on the other hand, Simberg’s troll is known as a fundamentally kindly figure that becomes involved in all sorts of human affairs. Therefore it could be that the troll-like demon in this picture is only helping the villagers play on their traditional swing, without any wicked motives.
Photograph by Rauno Träskelin
Helene Schjerfbeck
(1862–1946)
Måsse II, 1943
The model for this oil painting was Helene Schjerfbeck’s nephew, Måns “Måsse” Schjerfbeck, who was a biology and geography teacher at a Swedish school in Helsinki. Being close and dear to his aunt, Måsse appeared in many portraits by Schjerfbeck. At the time of completion, the artist lived in Sweden, to where she had emigrated to escape the war. Måsse’s angular looks and solemn character are carefully portrayed. The tall, slim nephew was known as a contemplative person, who could be a strict teacher when necessary. The geometric style, pronounced outlines and simplification that characterise Schjerfbeck’s later works are evident here.
Maria Wiik
(1853–1928)
Thistles, 1898
This pastel and gouache painting by Maria Wiik was the first artwork that Juhani Kirpilä bought with his own money. He acquired it in 1954, at the age of 23, from Konstsalongen Art Gallery in Helsinki, with pay from his summer internship at Kivelä Hospital. In the early days of his collecting career, Juhani favoured figurative art, and he bought many works by women artists throughout his life. In this work, Wiik depicts a harsh weed with a soft and delicate touch. The paper shines through in some patches and the edges have partly been left uncovered.
Kain Tapper
(1930–2004)
Tangle, 1975
Kain Tapper carved a likeness of the skull of his childhood family’s horse, Takku (“Tangle”), out of pinewood. Takku was like a family member and Kain, especially, was heartbroken after it died. Some ten years after the horse’s passing, Tapper dug up its skeleton and began making studies of animal skulls. Of the artists who lived and worked during his lifetime, Juhani Kirpilä was closest to Tapper, whom he had met in the early 1960s. He was one of the few artists from whom Juhani bought works directly.
Yrjö Saarinen
(1899–1958)
Sauna Attendant, 1950
The lush and colourful paintings of Hyvinkää-based artist Yrjö Saarinen were among Juhani Kirpilä’s favourites. Saarinen’s models were often working women from the Hyvinkää wool factory, companions of his wife Meeri Kallio. The model for this oil painting, however, was the poet Impi Kauppila, who lived in Hyvinkää and also worked as a sauna attendant and life model. Kauppila’s first book of poems and only published work, Paratiisin valloitus (1947), is known as a milestone of Finnish Modernist poetry. Saarinen favoured crimson and it was also Juhani’s favourite colour, worn by the collector in the form of bright red tennis socks to spice up almost any outfit, even tailored suits.
Pekka Halonen
(1865–1933)
Winter Forest, 1931
Pekka Halonen depicts the sunlight falling onto snow in the surroundings of Lake Tuusula, where the artist lived with his family in his studio-cum-home, Halosenniemi. This oil painting is one of many works by Halonen inherited by Juhani Kirpilä from his parents. Halonen had been one of the favourites of Juhani’s father Vilho, and Juhani would later make his own additions to his Halonen collection. For his winter landscapes, Halonen was inspired by frescoes by Italian Early Renaissance masters, especially Masaccio and Giotto, as well as by Paul Gauguin’s Synthetist depictions of winter in Paris. Halonen had studied under Gauguin in Paris in the 1890s. The admiration felt by European artists of the day towards decorativism and Japonisme is also evident in Halonen’s works.
Einar Ilmoni
(1880–1946)
Self-Portrait, 1907
Einar Ilmoni, known as “the Hermit of Kangasala”, was one of Juhani Kirpilä’s favourite artists. In this pastel self-portrait, made at the age of around 27, the artist’s personality is skilfully rendered. The solemn expression and sidling glance reflect a shy, introverted and highly religious artist who spent nearly his whole life in the small town of Kangasala with his four siblings.
Åke Mattas
(1920–1962)
Self-Portrait, 1962
This self-portrait, dating from the year of Åke Mattas’s death, openly depicts the prematurely aged artist, ravaged by alcoholism. Mattas is only 42 in this oil painting. The Kirpilä Art Collection contains more than 40 works by Mattas, more than by any other artist. Juhani Kirpilä was beguiled by this bohemian artist’s depictions of the human body and its mortality, often realistic to the point of morbidity. As a physician and well-known realist, Juhani could value the more grotesque and difficult aspects of life in art. Not everything is beautiful and serene in the collection’s works. This self-portrait has elements of Mattas’s great idol, Vincent van Gogh, with an emphasis on features shared by the two artists, such as their red hair and beard.
Elin Danielson-Gambogi
(1861–1919)
Landscape in Italy, 1896–1897
Elin Danielson-Gambogi spent her last twenty or so years in Italy, having married the local artist Raffaello Gambogi. Here, Danielson-Gambogi depicts her new home region, close to the city of Livorno in Tuscany. The oil painting is a pastoral idyll, with sheep wandering through a sunlit olive grove, the shadows of a sleepy afternoon falling over a colourful carpet of flowers and glimpses of a brilliant blue sky.
Kuvat: Rauno Träskelin