Pekka Halonen’s exhibition opens in Denmark
The exhibition ‘Pekka Halonen: The Call of Finland’ opens today at the Ordrupgaard Museum. It presents Pekka Halonen as one of the most significant artists in Finnish art history. The exhibition has been organised in collaboration with the Ateneum Art Museum, the Petit Palais art museum in Paris, the Rijksmuseum Twente in the Netherlands and the Ordrupgaard Museum. Several works and artefacts from Halosenniemi are on display.
The exhibition features 85 works spanning Pekka Halonen’s entire career. Included are his breakthrough works from the 1900 Paris World Exhibition, which played a part in shaping Finland’s national identity. Halonen’s later works crystallised the uniqueness of Finnish nature, with natural forms and light approaching an almost abstract expression. One of the exhibition galleries is devoted entirely to breathtaking snowy landscapes, which earned Halonen the nickname ‘the painter of snow’.
Twelve paintings from the collections of the Halosenniemi Museum and the Pekka Halonen Society have been included in the travelling exhibition. On display are early masterpieces such as *A Public Holiday in a New House* (1894), *Self-Portrait* (1890), as well as *Interior of the Studio* (1913) and *Spring Ice on Lake Tuusula* (1927), both painted in Tuusula. The exhibition also features items used by Pekka Halonen on his painting trips, including essential tools such as skis, a rucksack and a travelling easel.
The Ordrupgaard Art Museum, situated near Copenhagen, has operated as a national art museum since 1953. The museum is housed in a country manor completed in 1918, which was built by Wilhelm Hansen, who worked in the insurance industry. It is to him that the museum owes its extensive collections of 19th- and 20th-century Danish and French art. The area is also home to the house of the renowned Danish furniture designer Finn Juhlin. Modern facilities for temporary exhibitions were completed in 2005 as an extension to the Ordrupgaard Museum.
Pekka Halonen’s exhibition tour of three European museums forms part of the Ateneum’s “Classics to the World” project. It has been supported by the Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation. The exhibition has proved highly popular at both the Petit Palais in Paris and the Rijksmuseum Twente in the Netherlands. At the Ordrupgaard Museum in Charlottenlund, Denmark, the exhibition will be on display from 4 September 2026 to 10 January 2027.
Ordrupgaard Museum,
Vilvordevej 110, Charlottenlund, Denmark
Further information
Minna Tuominen
Ulla Kinnunen
This content has been translated using AI