Gösta Serlachius as a person | Serlachius

PAULI SIVONEN, DIRECTOR OF SERLACHIUS MUSEUMSWhat kind of a man was Gösta Serlachius? Such a question came to my mind when I recently happened to see historical photographs that had just been donated to the collection of the Gösta Serlachius Fine Arts Foundation.

In one of them, Gösta, already quite stout, is chasing a sheep in the meadow, which in turn does not seem to be very enthusiastic about the encounter. The photo has speed and vibe – it captures a moment that has passed quickly, not people who are self-aware and pose for a pose.

What I think is most important, the Gösta in the picture looks somehow human. Maybe different from how I was used to think he was.

Getting acquainted

I started to “get to know” Gösta Serlachius at the turn of the year 2000–2001, when I had just started working at the Fine Arts Foundation, which he had established more than 65 years earlier. First thing was to read everything that had been written over time about him, the Serlachius company he led and the foundation he set up.

Gösta was the Serlachius who inherited a small local paper mill from his uncle G. A. Serlachius in the early 1900s and vigorously developed it into a nationwide forest industry combine.

He was one of the pillars of white Finland. He served as a high-ranking officer in Marschal Mannerheim’s army, kept “blacklists” of his factory workers and brought a strike breaker organisation from the United States to Finland.

On the other hand, he was also a genuine lover of art. He collected and donated to posterity one of the most significant private art collections in the Nordic countries. He appreciated architecture and built Mänttä together with the best architects of his time.

He was also a nature enthusiast, hunter, fisherman and cattle breeder, whose relationship with animals was mainly based on utilitarianism.

By interviewing members of the Serlachius family, I gradually got to know Gösta better and better. For example, Gustaf Serlachius, Gösta’s grandson, who hired me to work for the Fine Arts Foundation, told me about a slightly frightening grandfather who used to keep in a control and discipline the children brought for a visit to Joenniemi Manor.

I also heard how mercilessly Gösta treated his wife Sissi after she divorced her. Gösta began to seem not only determined and productive, but also quite a tough man.

Biography

Gradually, the idea arose to study the industrialists in Serlachius Family more deeply. In 2010–2021, we published a series of four biographies that delved into the colourful fates of G. A., Gösta, R. Erik and Gustaf Serlachius. Gösta’s biography Paperisydän (Paper Heart) was written by historian Oula Silvennoinen and published in 2012.

The biography by Oula Silvennoinen was based on careful archival work and opened up the character of Gösta to me and all other readers of the book even more. Silvennoinen carefully went through, for example, Gösta’s difficult childhood and his difficulties in coping at school.

On the other hand, the biography showed that Gösta’s place was indisputably on top of the nation’s cupboard. He lived at a time when Finland was gaining independence, going through bitter crises, but also prospering and gradually starting to develop into a modern welfare state. He was an important economic and political influencer.

His significance as a pioneer of Finnish art, foundations, museums and, for example, percent art opened up in a new way.

Above all, biography authored by Oula Silvennoinen introduced us to Gösta as a person. Not only as a determined, strong-willed, fierce, important and even petty character, but also as a family member devoted to his loved ones.

Public image

Gösta was clearly interested not only in what his contemporaries thought of him, but also in his reputation.

In his portraits, he wanted to be seen as a successful businessman who thought globally and acted locally. For example, in the portrait painted by Antti Faven in 1939, he sits in the salon of Joenniemi Manor with the foundations of the family’s wealth in his background: the Finnish forest and the smoke-puffing smokestack of the Mänttä mill.

In the official photographs, he also wanted to portray himself as a good family man and a respected citizen.

For example, in the family portrait shot in Vienna in 1903, he looks seriously in front of him. Like a frame, his young, seemingly prosperous family has settled around him.

In his portraits, Gösta often wanted to emphasise his relationship with art. He liked to have himself photographed so that one or more of the works in his extensive art collection could be seen in the background or even in the foreground.

One of the funniest portraits of Gösta was created in secret from him. When the mill owner turned 60, the sculptor Hannes Autere, whom he supported as a patron, gave him a small sculpture as a gift. In the work, Gösta is like a mother figure who feeds the “baby” in her arms, Hannes Autere himself, with a baby bottle.

The story goes that Gösta was not particularly enthusiastic about this gift presenting the patronage relationship. The gift was reportedly hidden in a chest of drawers, at least at first. Now it is on display in a museum maintained by the Fine Arts Foundation he founded.

Human being

Over the years, we have gradually accumulated photographs related to Gösta in our museum’s collection activities, both from the private archives of the Serlachius family and from other sources.

In doing so, we have gradually learned that Gösta did not succeed in cleaning up his more personal appearance from all the photographs he left behind and did not necessarily want to do so either. Gösta appears in a very human light in many of the photos taken of him. In everyday photos, he meets his friends, poses in the field or goes fishing, for example.

Interaction with family members comes out well. For example, Gösta’s close relationship with his second wife, Ruth, can be seen in the photographs in old family albums, sometimes formal, sometimes very immediate.

Alternative views

Of course, Gösta’s character has been of interest not only to his contemporaries, but also to posterity more broadly. He has not only been a public actor in business and politics, but also a human caricature in novels and plays, for example.

In the biography, Oula Silvennoinen tells how Gösta became deeply offended by his cousin Göran Castren, who had the nerve to use his character as a model in one of his play scripts. The caricature was not at all favourable, and Gösta considered filing a lawsuit.

Quite recently, Gösta has also appeared as a character in a few novels. I think that when reading these books, we should remember that they are literature: images of the thinking of their authors rather than of Gösta.

Gösta’s biggest scandal of his own time was related to Ester Toivonen, the Finnish beauty queen. Gösta and his wife Ruth became friends with Ester Toivonen, who won the title of Miss Europe in England in 1933, and the relationship quickly became close.

When Ester began to visit Joenniemi Manor more and more often, gossip began to circulate. Soon, a Swedish newspaper already speculated that Gösta had secretly married Ester. In the few photographs taken by Gösta and Ester together, the relationship appears more innocent.

Gösta’s own story?

While writing these lines, I have realised that I actually know Gösta Serlachius quite well.

I’ve read about him, had a biography and a few other books commissioned about him, and I’ve also made several exhibitions about him. I have looked at his pictures and worked in the town he built and in the Fine Arts Foundation he established for more than two decades. Actually, what is missing is to accompany Gösta’s own words to the world.

Gösta wrote himself. He wrote a short autobiography about his relationship with art and a really interesting text for Till mina söner (To My Sons), in which he evaluates his own life’s work.

Most of these texts are unpublished and thus inaccessible to the general public. It would surely be high time to give Gösta himself a voice by publishing these texts.

arrow_back arrow_forward