Pekka Halonen

Pekka Halonen (23 September 1865 – 1 December 1933) was a Finnish painter of landscapes and people in the national romantic and Realist styles.

Biography

Pekka Halonen was born on 23 September 1865 in Linnasalmi, Lapinlahti, Finland, the son of Olli Halonen, a farmer, and Wilhelmina Halonen (née Uotinen). Halonen's father was himself an amateur artist who not only ran the farm, but also worked as a decorative painter on commissions from churches in neighbouring districts. Halonen often accompanied his father on these painting trips and was thus introduced into the craft of painting. and later under Paul Gauguin. He also studied at the Académie Vitti in Paris.

In 1895, Pekka Halonen married a young music student, Maija Mäkinen. They had eight children: four sons and four daughters. Halonen died in Tuusula on 1 December 1933. He was buried at the Tuusula Church in Tuusula.

Style Halonen chronicled the Finnish landscape and its people. He had an early interest in Symbolism, but Gauguin's decorative Synthetism, as well as Japanese woodcuts, had a deeper impression on his work. Adjacent to the house, Halonen built a sauna, which in typical Finnish tradition also served as a laundry. The landscape near Halosenniemi was an important source of inspiration for his art. In Tuusula Halonen had a wide circle of artist friends and relatives which provided him with a daily source of social and cultural stimulation.

On the shores of the lake where he resided an artists' community flourished, helping to develop a sense of Finnish national identity. Halosenniemi was designed with the two-storey studios of Paris in mind, with high ceilings and tall windows in the studio, and second-floor living-quarters accessible by a set of stairs and a balcony that overlooked the studio.

The building is now a museum that includes original furnishings and Halonen's own art.

Selected works