Helene Schjerfbeck

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Helene Schjerfbeck, 1890

Helene (Helena Sofia) Schjerfbeck ( debate ? / I ) (born July 10, 1862 in Helsinki , Grand Duchy of Finland , † January 23, 1946 in Saltsjöbaden , Sweden ) was a Finnish-Swedish painter. Audio file / audio sample

Life

Helene Schjerfbeck, daughter of railway employee Svante Schjerfbeck, was a talented painter and draftsman even as a child. At the age of four, she suffered a hip fracture that prevented her from going to school; she also had to give up teaching in later years because the ascent to the classrooms was too difficult for her. As a schoolgirl, she has already won several prizes; a picture by the then seventeen year old was bought by the Finnish Art Society after an exhibition. In her youth, Schjerfbeck traveled a lot. In 1880, on a scholarship from the Finnish Senate, she lived for a few months in Paris for study purposes, where she gained significant inspiration from the art scene.

From July 1887 until the spring of the following year, Schjerfbeck visited her friend, the Austro-British painter Marianne Stokes and her husband Adrian Scott Stokes in St Ives in the English county of Cornwall and returned there in the summer of 1889 for a longer stay. where she shared a studio with her Finnish friend Maria Wiik . In contrast to these eventful youth, Schjerfbeck later lived more than a decade in isolation in a village about 30 kilometers from Helsinki. Together with her mother, who she had to look after as a single woman, she lived in a confined space in a one-room apartment. Under these conditions she created a series of pictures, mostly with women as the subject. In 1917 she met the art dealer Gösta Stenman, who made an exhibition possible for her. After her death, she was buried in Helsinki in the Hietaniemi cemetery.

Works

The convalescent , 1888.
Girl in Profile , 1887.

Her best-known work is Toipilas (Swedish: Konvalescenten, German: The convalescent ) from 1888. The picture shows a little girl smiling entranced in a wicker chair, her hands glazed over a delicate flower in the vase. Some researchers consider the picture to be a symbolic self-portrait in which Schjerfbeck reflects on her own situation as an injured but recovering person, while others see it primarily as a typical expression of contemporary subjects.

About forty self-portraits from almost 80 years of life are one of the focal points in Helene Schjerfbeck's oeuvre. Pictures of women, such as the reading girl from 1907, the pale baker's daughter in front of bright orange, a school girl from 1928 with a red mouth and bobbed head, a girl kneeling in the sand, which she painted three times in the same pose with different means, and other, mostly female, portraits , often several times in a similar posture, are typical of them. The self-portrait with Palette II was created between 1937 and 1945. Her mother is also portrayed in several pictures.

A young woman with a kantele with a torn string contrasts cool works by her contemporaries such as Akseli Gallen-Kallela, which are marked by national romanticism and pathos . In an oil painting from 1908, a schoolgirl in a black dress stands in front of an empty background. A cone of light highlights her feet. Her hair hangs down in a lackluster plait, she holds her delicate little head down, her pale face, a sharp nose, her hands clasped in front of her loose dress.

Style and meaning

Schjerfbeck's early work is characterized by a radical naturalism. Her technical skills as a growing painter were admired, but her choice of subjects exceeded traditional boundaries. It was at least unusual for a woman to paint, for example, wounded soldiers (1880) or a soldier on his deathbed (1886).

After her return from Paris, Schjerfbeck felt like an outsider in the Finnish art world, which is dominated by national romanticism. On the one hand, their unpathetic realism met with reservations; on the other hand, she was already developing a reducing style of painting, which contemporaries criticized for the lack of detail.

Helene Schjerfbeck, self-portrait, 1912

During the two decades in Hyvinkää, where she withdrew with her mother from 1902 and concentrated on painting, she left naturalism behind and developed her own style of painting, which is characterized by expressive colors and strong lines.

In the last two decades of her work, due to a lack of models, she often resorted to her own motifs, of which she repeatedly painted new versions. or she painted self-portraits. The latter offer an exceptional basis for an analysis of the development of their style.

Helene Schjerfbeck Self-Portrait with Red Speckles (Punatäpläinen omakuva) 1944

While she portrays herself as a self-confident artist in the Self-Portrait with a Silver Background (1914), especially in the last years of her life, she shows herself as a fragile and increasingly physically sunken woman who is ultimately reduced to a skull. In these last self-portraits the falling lines of the eyes, mouth and lower jaw stand out. The approaching death corresponds painterly with a reduction in color palette and details.

The portrayal of women in Schjerfbeck's self-portraits differs radically from an ideal of beauty to which women as models are traditionally subject. Schjerfbeck's importance lies in the relentless portrayal of her own vulnerability, which, however, remains strong and intense in visual expression.

Current reception

  • In 2007 a retrospective in Paris, in Hamburg at the Hamburger Kunsthalle and in The Hague drew international attention to Helene Schjerfbeck.
  • In 2012 the Ateneum Museum in Helsinki dedicated the most extensive exhibition of her works to date to her 150th birthday with more than 300 pieces. It was seen by more than 230,000 visitors.
  • In 2012, the National Bank of Finland issued a coin worth € 2.00 on the occasion of its 150th birthday.
  • In 2014, the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt presented a solo exhibition with more than 80 works by Helene Schjerfbeck in cooperation with the Finnish National Museum, the Ateneum Art Museum, from October 2nd.
  • In 2019, the Royal Academy of Arts in London, in collaboration with the Finnish National Museum, the Ateneum Art Museum, presented an exhibition of their works from July 20th to October 27th.
  • The same exhibition was then shown in the Helsinki Ateneum from November 15, 2019 to January 26, 2020, where it became one of the best-attended exhibitions in the history of the museum. The focus of the exhibition was the influence of her stays in France, Italy and Great Britain on her artistic self-image.
  • In January 2020, a biographical-dramatic film about the years of her rise as an artist was released.

honors and awards

  • 1879: 3rd Ducat Prize from the Finnish Art Association
  • 1882: 2nd prize in the Finnish national portrait competition
  • 1886: 2nd prize in the Finnish national portrait competition
  • 1889: Bronze medal at the Paris World Exhibition
  • In 2012, the National Bank of Finland issued a 2 euro commemorative coin on Schjerfbeck's 150th birthday.

literature

  • Leena Ahtola-Moorhouse (Ed.): Helene Schjerfbeck. 150 years. Helsinki 2012. (Catalog Raisonée)
  • Leena Ahtola-Moorhouse (Ed.): Helene Schjerfbeck. Finland's modernist rediscovered. Helsinki / Washington 1992.
  • Lea Bergström, Sue Cedercreutz-Suhonen: Helene Schjerfbeck. Malleja-Modeller-Models. WSOY, Helsinki 2003.
  • Barbara Beuys : Helene Schjerfbeck. The painter from Finland. Insel Verlag, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-458-17689-3 ; also: Insel taschenbuch 4685, Insel Verlag, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-458-36385-9 .
  • Marie Christine Jádi: Helene Schjerfbeck and Gwen John - The Expression of Emotions in Modern Painting. Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-496-01572-7 .
  • Michelle Facos : Helene Schjerfbeck's Self-Portraits: Revelation and Dissimulation . In: Woman's Art Journal . tape 16 , no. 1 , 1995, ISSN  0270-7993 , pp. 12-17 , doi : 10.2307 / 1358625 , JSTOR : 1358625 .
  • Annabelle Görgen, Hubertus Gaßner: Helene Schjerfbeck: 1862–1946. Hirmer, Munich 2007.
  • Marie Christine Tams: "Dense Depths of the Soul": A Phenomenological Approach to Emotion and Mood in the Work of Helene Schjerfbeck. In: Parrhesia. 13, 2011, pp. 157-176.

Web links

Commons : Helene Schjerfbeck  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hietaniemi Cemetery: MERKITTÄVIÄ VAINAJIA , page 17. (PDF; 552 kB)
  2. ^ Riitta Konttinen: Helene Schjerfbeckin 1880-luku [Helene Schjerfbeck's 1880s]. In: Helen Schjerfbeck. Exhibition catalog. Ateneum, Helsinki 1992, p. 51.
  3. ↑ Omakuvista tunnettu Helene Schjerfbeck rikkoi rajoja monella tavalla. (Helene Schjerfbeck, known for her self-portraits, crossed various boundaries.) Article from July 7, 2017 / June 28, 2019 on the homepage of the Finnish public broadcaster YLE, accessed on February 16, 2020.
  4. ^ Sue Cedercreutz Suhonen: Kuva-analyysi. In: H enkisyys taiteessa: Helene Schjerfbeck. Exhibition catalog, Helsinki 2012, p. 44.
  5. ^ Sue Cedercreutz Suhonen: Kuva-analyysit. In: Henkisyys taiteessa: Helene Schjerfbeck. Exhibition catalog, Helsinki 2012, p. 55.
  6. ^ Nina Zilliacus: Kuva-analyysit. In: Henkisyys taiteessa: Helene Schjerfbeck. Exhibition catalog, Helsinki 2012, p. 108.
  7. ↑ Omakuvista tunnettu Helene Schjerfbeck rikkoi rajoja monella tavalla. (Helene Schjerfbeck, known for her self-portraits, crossed various boundaries.) Article from July 7, 2017 / June 28, 2019 on the homepage of the Finnish public broadcaster YLE, accessed on February 16, 2020.
  8. ↑ Helene Schjerfbeck. In: hamburger-kunsthalle.de. Hamburger Kunsthalle, accessed on July 17, 2019 .
  9. ^ Helsingin Sanomat, International Edition
  10. ^ Website of the Schirn Kunsthalle for the exhibition by Helene Schjerfbeck. Retrieved September 20, 2014 .
  11. ^ Website of the Royal Academy London on the exhibition by Helene Schjerfbeck. Retrieved July 17, 2019 .
  12. ↑ Helsingin Sanomat, January 26th, 2020: Schjerfbeck imi Ateneumiin jättiyleisön: päätöspäivänä taidemuseon edessä oli pitkä jono. German: Schjerfbeck attracted a huge audience. January 26, 2020, accessed February 15, 2020 (Finnish).
  13. ↑ Ateneumin talvi 2019–2020 syventyy Helene Schjerfbeckin matkoihin sekä taiteilijoiden Ruoveteen. March 19, 2019, accessed February 15, 2020 (Finnish).
  14. ↑ Helene IMDb. Retrieved February 15, 2020 .
  15. ↑ https://kuvataiteilijamatrikkeli.fi/taiteilija/helene-schjerfbeck-2
  16. ↑ https: // eur-lex .europa.eu / legal-content / DE / TXT /? Uri = CELEX: C2012 / 231/03
personal data
SURNAME Schjerfbeck, Helene
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schjerfbeck, Helena Sofia
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Finnish-Swedish painter
DATE OF BIRTH July 10, 1862
PLACE OF BIRTH Helsinki , Grand Duchy of Finland
DATE OF DEATH January 23, 1946
Place of death Saltsjöbaden , Sweden