GAo ShAn

Our Roots and Currents exhibition with three artists combine history, evolution and contemporary.

The history part highlights the art of Antti Favén (1882–1948), known for European cultivation, a disciplined formal language, and a perceptive psychological approach. He studied and worked in Paris from 1902 to 1913. In the autumn of 1909, a significant joint exhibition of Finnish artists was held in Paris, featuring works by Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Eero Järnefelt, Verner Thomé, and Antti Favén. Le Monde Illustré published an almost full-page reproduction of Favén’s painting Marquise d’Aste.

– One senses the fleeting moment of happy inspiration, executed by a masterful brush... it is life itself fixed upon the canvas, wrote the magazine’s editor-in-chief at the time.

Favén is best known as a portrait painter. He portrayed four Presidents of Finland, two of them in official state portraits. Among his notable sitters were also Jean Sibelius and Eino Leino. His portraits are not merely depictions of prominent figures of his time, but studies of presence, light, and humanity.

In our exhibition you can see a couple of artworks by Antti. As a highlight you can also see his atelier case that he used for creating a lot of his artworks.

In Ateneum art museum’s exhibition “A Question of Time” you can see two gorgeous paintings by him: Päivänpaistetta (Sunshine) and the portrait of Jean Sibelius.

We warmly recommend you to experience our exhibition and the Ateneum exhibition together on the same day.