THE 1930’S AND MAIRE GULLICHSEN – Yngve Bäck, Helene Schjerfbeck, Gunnar Elfgren

Maire Gullichsen’s role as a significant background figure and promoter of modernism in Finland is well known and the private home, Villa Mairea, with its art collections is internationally renowned. Pori Art Museum’s informative exhibition at MEDIApoint and senior lecturer Renja Suominen-Kokkonen’s research direct the viewer to the roots of the collection and to how the collection was born.

Helene Schjerfbeck’s painting, Self Portrait (1915-26), Magnus Enckell’s watercolour, Youth and Swan (1916), Wäinö Aaltonen’s, Song of My Heart (1932-34) and works by the teachers of the Free Art School such as Yngve Bäck’s, Märta in White (1933) and Torger Enckell’s, Still Life with Flowers (1934) form part of Maire Gullichsen’s early acquisitions. Villa Mairea ,completed in 1939, has received a lot of publicity. Art was acquired to the homes of Maire and Harry Gullichsen even before Villa Mairea. These works are not all ones that have usually been connected to Villa Mairea or ones that have been presented in connection of the Maire Gullichsen Art Foundation’s Collections.

As senior lecturer, Renja Suominen-Kokkonen explains, the beginning of the Gullichsen family’s collection was primarily domestic. High-quality works were chosen for the collection from the very outset. The collection was also influenced by Maire Gullichsen’s own interest in art, the contacts with the Free Art School and the support of artists belonging to the school’s circle.

The 1930’s and Maire Gullichsen is the start of a series of exhibitions presenting the Maire Gullichsen Art Foundations Collection that will be continued in summer 2004 by an exhibition entitled ”Lars-Gunnar Nordström and Jazz’. In fall 2004 a related article by Renja Suominen-Kokkonen will be published in the art museum’s publication series.