Eero Nelimarkka (2026 Ateneum exhibition)

 

Eero Nelimarkka. The Ateneum exhibition catalogue

In Finnish art, Eero Nelimarkka is a household name, even bordering on the over-familiar, because he was in huge demand and able to create on a conveyor belt paintings of his beloved Pohjanmaa / Österbotten / Ostrobothnia landscapes. It was even joked that he must have had a wallpaper roll of Ostrobothnian oils from which he could sell pieces on demand. 

Myself, with an Ostrobothnian background, am moved by those landscapes, and today's exhibition has a room (3.9) full of them. I particularly prefer the "scope" / "double carré" format, at best with a low skyline, the plains unfolding under a magnificent sky. An inevitable point of comparison are the Westerns such as John Ford's landscapes / soulscapes. Nelimarkka's landscapes are eerie, because there are no people, although they are always cultivated with fields and barns.

Helene Schjerfbeck was an inspiration for Nelimarkka, not least in the commitment to self-portraits, and according to the exhibition information, Nelimarkka painted probably more self-portraits than any other Finnish painter (room 3.12). There is usually an expression of grim determination and a sideways glance, sometimes plain agony. Nelimarkka was a self-made man who rose to the top from conditions of grinding poverty. Hardship marked him. In a country which during his lifetime endured four wars, the Great Depression and the tough post-WWII reconstruction, people could identify with him.

Religion was a profound aspect in Nelimarkka's life. He painted explicitly religious works such as altarpieces, but a dimension of transcendence is ubiquitous in his entire oeuvre. It can be felt in the immense skies of his landscapes and the suffering in his auto-portraits.

His interiors have been singled out as special by critics such as Marja-Terttu Kivirinta, and today they are the big discovery for me. Nelimarkka's interiors can be can be compared with Vermeer, Schjerfbeck (The Door), Hammershøi and Hopper. The views are ordinary, but there is a presence of something extraordinary. The stairways, the doors and the windows seem to lead to the beyond.

Like Caspar David Friedrich, Nelimarkka often portrays people in Rückenfigur, with their back turned to us. Nelimarkka's group portraits are severe and solemn, but I imagine a smile lurking behind the serious pose. A loving glow radiates from the portraits of his wife Saima. His portraits of babies are sensitive and tender. His nudes are warm and sensual, self-confident women happy about their beauty as God intended, not objects of male gaze.

Nelimarkka was a well-travelled man whose favourite city was Paris. The avid visitor of Le Louvre found his calling in the living legacy of world art. Awareness of contemporary and international trends did not tempt him to follow. Instead Paris encouraged him to find his own world and portray it in his way.