Gallen-Kallela as a portraitist of the Pueblo people
Akseli Gallen-Kallela, An Indian Woman in New Mexico, 1925
In the autumn of 1923, Akseli Gallen-Kallela was invited to organise an exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, and he travelled to America in November. His stay on the lands of the Pueblo peoples in the Taos artist community in New Mexico encouraged the artist to resume his painting.
As Gallen-Kallela’s journey dragged on, the artist’s wife Mary and daughter Kirsti also travelled to the United States in September 1924. Both were skilled musicians. So, Akseli organised for them a concert tour, which he planned to start in Santa Feta in New Mexico.
The Gallen-Kallelas settled in Taos, near Santa Fe, where there was a community of artists and a village of Pueblo Indians. “For my father, this time in Taos was a time of peace, silence and work. He painted 30–40 paintings and started writing the Kallela book again,” Kirsti Gallen-Kallela recalled.
Indigenous culture sparked painting
At first, the artist was not enthusiastic about painting, but gradually he began to sketch the nature and indigenous people of the area. The strongly outlined depictions of people had ethnographic features. Consequently, the Pueblo peoples began to regard him as their own man. “What tribe are the Indians of your homeland?” he was asked.
In keeping with the spirit of the time, the artist was fascinated by racial traits, skin colour and costumes. There was something fairytale-like and mystical about the models and also points of contact with Finnish folklore. The Taos era inspired Gallen-Kallela to return to the illustration of the Great Kalevala again.
A key artist in the Serlachius Collection
Gallen-Kallela’s art has a special place in the Serlachius collection. At the founding meeting of the Fine Arts Foundation, where the acquisition policy was defined, he was the only artist mentioned by name. Gallen-Kallela and Serlachius were united by memories of Mänttä and their youth, as well as the patriotism they had expressed in Mannerheim’s White Army’s General Staff: Serlachius as intendant, Gallen-Kallela in special duties.
The established status of the artist, who had been awarded the title of professor and honorary doctorate, also appealed to Serlachius, whose collection gained qualitative and quantitative weight from the artist’s oeuvre. Serlachius acquired more than a hundred of Gallen-Kallela’s works, first directly from the artist, then through intermediaries, and after the artist’s death from his son Jorma Gallen-Kallela. In 1937, he offered the Fine Arts Foundation six works for purchase for a total price of 84,000 marks (about €38,000). Among these was The Indian Woman and another work painted in Taos, The Willow Tree and the Blue Bird in New Mexico, 1925.
Helena Hänninen
Curator
Sources:
Onni Okkonen, Gallen-Kallelan elämä ja taide, 1949.
Kirsti Gallen-Kallela, Muistelmia nuoruusvuosiltani 1896–1931, 1982.
