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.

Photograph by Rauno Träskelin

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