AKSELI GALLEN KALLELA (1865-1931)
Pueblo Peak (2,631m - 8,632ft)
United States of America (Oregon / Nevada)
In Taos Mountains covered by clouds (Taos vuoret pilvien peitossa), oil on canvas, 1924. Kansallisgalleria
The mountain
Pueblo Peak (2,631m - 8,632ft) to Pueblo Mountain is the highest point of the Pueblo Mountains, a remote mountain range in the United States located mostly in southeastern Oregon and partially in northwestern Nevada. Most land in the Pueblo Mountains is managed by the federal Bureau of Land Management.
While there is no designated wilderness area in the Pueblo Mountains, traveling in the mountains can be very challenging. The Desert Trail runs through the mountains; however, it is not a developed hiking trail. The route is simply marked by rock cairns that serve as guideposts. The cairns were built as a cooperative venture between the Bureau of Land Management, the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, and the Desert Trail Association (a private organization). The Desert Trail Association publishes a topographic map for hikers that gives directions for orienteering from cairn to cairn.
Cattle and sheep grazing in the Pueblo Mountains began when the first ranches were established along the eastern edge of the mountains in the mid-1860s.
Miners were among the first to explore the Pueblo Mountains. There are at least 18 locations where mining took place in the past.
Wind power is now being explored in the Pueblo Mountains. The test allowed a private wind energy company to install, operate, and maintain two meteorological poles.
The painter
Akseli Gallen-Kallela was a Swedish-speaking Finnish painter who is best known for his illustrations of the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic. His work was considered very important for the Finnish national identity. He changed his name from Gallen to Gallen-Kallela in 1907. In 1884 he moved to Paris, to study at the Académie Julian and became friends with the Finnish painter Albert Edelfelt, the Norwegian painter Adam Dörnberger, and the Swedish writer August Strindberg.
In December 1894, Gallen-Kallela moved to Berlin to oversee the joint exhibition of his works with the works of Norwegian painter Edvard Munch. Here he became acquainted with the Symbolists.
On his return from Germany, Gallen studied print-making and visited London to deepen his knowledge, and in 1898 studied fresco-painting in Italy.
For the Paris World Fair in 1900, Gallen-Kallela painted frescoes for the Finnish Pavilion. In these frescoes, his political ideas became most apparent.Gallen-Kallela officially finnicized his name to the more Finnish-sounding Akseli Gallen-Kallela in 1907.
In 1909, Gallen-Kallela moved to Nairobi in Kenya with his family, and there he painted over 150 expressionist oil paintings and bought many east African artefacts. But he returned to Finland after a couple of years, because he realized Finland was his main inspiration. Between 1911 and 1913 he designed and built a studio and house at Tarvaspää, about 10 km northwest of the centre of Helsinki.
From December 1923 to May 1926, Gallen-Kallela lived in the United States, where an exhibition of his work toured several cities, and where he visited the Taos art-colony in New Mexico to study indigenous American art. In 1925 he began the illustrations for his "Great Kalevala". This was still unfinished when he died of pneumonia in Stockholm on 7 March 1931, while returning from a lecture in Copenhagen, Denmark
His studio and house at Tarvaspää was opened as the Gallen-Kallela Museum in 1961
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2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau
