Pekka Halonen. An ode to Finland

Pekka Halonen

The Rijksmuseum Twenthe presents a major retrospective exhibition of the Finnish painter Pekka Halonen (1865–1933). In Finland, he is one of the most beloved artists, but outside his native country his work is still rarely seen. With this exhibition, developed in collaboration with the Ateneum Art Museum in Helsinki, the Petit Palais in Paris and the Ordrupgaard Museum in Denmark, Rijksmuseum Twenthe is changing that.

Exhibition

The exhibition comprises 94 works, mostly paintings, supplemented by personal painting tools from Halosenniemi, Halonen’s self-designed studio house on Lake Tuusula. The exhibition traces his artistic development from his student years in Paris and his participation in the 1900 World’s Fair to his return to Finland. The exhibition concludes with his famous winter landscapes, in which Halonen captured the Finnish light, cold and silence like no other. It is no coincidence that he was nicknamed the ‘snow painter’.