Erik "Eero" Nikolai Järnefelt (8 November 1863 – 15 November 1937) was a Finnish painter and art professor. He is best known for his portraits and landscapes of the area around
Koli National Park. He was a medal winner at the Paris
Exposition Universelle of 1889 and
1900, and he taught art at the
University of Helsinki and was chairman of the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts.[1][2][3]
Biography
He was the son of General
Alexander Järnefelt and Baroness
Elisabeth Järnefelt (née
Clodt von Jürgensburg).[4] He came from a Swedish-speaking Finnophile family of artists, writers and composers descended from the Baltic aristocracy.[5] Several of his eight siblings also became well-known:
Kasper [
fi] (a literary critic),
Arvid (a judge and writer),
Armas (a composer and conductor) and
Aino (wife of
Jean Sibelius).[6]
In 1889, he married the actress
Saimi Swan [
fi]. In 1892, he made his first trip to the area around
Koli with
Juhani Aho and his wife, the painter
Venny Soldan-Brofeldt.[6] He was impressed with the scenery there and would continue to visit regularly until 1936.[7]
In 1893, he traveled to
Finland where he sketched and photographed agricultural workers which inspired his most famous painting, Under the Yoke (Burning the Brushwood).[8] Later, he made several study trips; to Italy in 1894 and
Crimea in 1899. That same year, he helped organize an international exhibition in Saint Petersburg, sponsored by Mir Iskusstva.
In 1901, he built a home that he named "Suviranta" (Summer Beach) at the artists' colony near
Lake Tuusula, designed by
Usko Nyström. He lived there only until 1917 when he moved to Helsinki, but it is still owned and used by his family.[9]
From 1902 to 1928, he taught drawing at the
University of Helsinki. He was appointed professor there in 1912 and served as chairman of the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts.[6] His last major work was an altarpiece for the church in
Raahe, which he completed in 1926. A major retrospective was held in 2013, which included several previously unknown works.
Pontus Grate and Nils Göran Hökby, ed. 1880-tal i nordiskt måleri [The 1880s in Nordic painting] (exh. cat., Stockholm: Nationalmuseum, 1985)
ISBN9789171002822
Leena Lindqvist (ed.), Taiteilijan tiellä – Eero Järnefelt 1863–1937 (The Artist's Path), Otava, 2002
ISBN951-1-144-66-9
Marko Toppi (ed.), Eero ja Saimi Järnefeltin kirjeenvaihtoa ja päiväkirjamerkintöjä 1889–1914 (correspondence and diaries, vol.1), SKS, 2009
ISBN978-952-222-113-1
Marko Toppi (ed.), Vain tosi on pysyväistä. Eero ja Saimi Järnefeltin kirjeenvaihtoa ja päiväkirjamerkintöjä 1915–1944 (correspondence and diaries, vol.2), SKS, 2013
ISBN978-952-222-399-9.
Kirk Varnedoe, ed. Northern Light: Realism and Symbolism in Scandinavian Painting, 1880–1910 (exh. cat., New York, Brooklyn Museum of Art, 1982) ISBN
ISBN9780872730946
Ludwig Wennervirta: Eero Järnefelt, ja hänen aikansa 1863–1937 (Helsinki: Otava, 1950)