The painter's landscapes fill Halosenniemi
23 September marks the 160th anniversary of Pekka Halonenu0026#x27;s birth. Halosenniemi will celebrate the artistu0026#x27;s life and career with a new exhibition, u0026quot;Far Away from the Land – In the Painteru0026#x27;s Landscapes,u0026quot; starting on Wednesday, 24 September. It will feature Halonenu0026#x27;s paintings from his home region of Lapinlahti, his travels in Finland and the surroundings of his studio home in Halosenniemi on the shores of Lake Tuusulanjärvi. Known as a portrayer of the Finnish people and nature, Halonen focused particularly on depicting the immediate surroundings of his home in Tuusula. The paintings convey the changes in the seasons and weather conditions.
During his studies in the late 1880s and early 1890s, Pekka Halonen painted landscapes of Lapinlahti. After meeting his future wife, Maija Mäkinen, in Karjala in the summer of 1892, he also began to depict views of her home town of Sortavala. The Myllykylä milieu consisted not only of red-painted wooden factory buildings but also rapids and river crossings.
The name of the exhibition comes from a letter written by Pekka Halonen to his fiancée Maija in Paris in the spring of 1894: “Far away from the city – to live and be in a small, pretty cottage and study God’s great works, that is our heritage.”
Starting in the 1890s, Finnish artists began building national romantic studio homes. Pekka Halonen also built his own log villa as a home and “wilderness studio”. He found the location for the house on a rocky peninsula on Lake Tuusula during a skiing trip in the early spring of 1899. The lake views, rocks and coves of Halosenniemi inspired Halonen to create realistic paintings at first and later colour impressionist paintings. In the latter part of his career, his landscape paintings were lyrical and harmonious fragments from the vicinity of his own home. He called his home peninsula his own “Louvre“, so he no longer needed any other inspiration for his art.
In the summer of 1916, Pekka Halonen discovered the wilderness of Kuhmoinen. These Central Finnish wilderness landscapes and rapids views became visible in Halonen’s art until the end of the 1920s, thanks to his summer residence in Kivikoski. Halonen’s art is characterised by recognisable painting locations, where he could paint dozens or even hundreds of works. Myllykylä in Sortavala, Lapinlahti, Kinahmi, Kuhmoinen and Tuusula inspired him to new painting subjects, such as the national landscapes of Väisälänmäki and Koli.
Halosta was always drawn to the spirit of a place. He sensed the atmosphere in the changing seasons, weather and times of day, sensitive to lighting phenomena and the shapes and colours of the landscape.
Far away from the city – in the painter’s landscapes
Pekka Halonen 160 years
24 September 2025–25 January 2026
Halosenniemi
Halosenniementie 4–6, Tuusula
Tel. 040 314 3466
www.halosenniemi.fi(opens in a new window, switch to another service)
Open
24 September 2025–26 January 2026. Tue–Sun 12 noon–5 p.m.
Closed for Christmas 15–25 December.
Admission fees
€12/€10/€0 Free with
a Museum Card or Kaiku Card.
Further information
Päivi Ahdeoja
This content has been translated using AI