Schjerfbeck’s talent was recognised when she was just 11 years old and she began attending art school. Her family could only afford to educate one of their children (her brother Magnus), but luckily her tutors believed in her potential and she was offered a full scholarship. When she was just 13, her father died from tuberculosis and her family fell further into poverty. But Schjerfbeck continued to receive funding, and by the age of 18, she was studying art in Paris on a trip paid for by the Finnish Government.
Schjerfbeck lived through some of the most seismic shifts in modern art, from Impressionism to Surrealism. But she was never one to follow the crowd and forged her own path. She drew inspiration everywhere from Old Master paintings to contemporary fashion magazines – and in the process she developed her own distinctive, expressive style. Her work defies categorisation and she is often seen as a “painter’s painter” - someone who constantly experimented with techniques, and was willing to push and take risks rather than repeat past successes.
He is little known outside her home country but Schjerfbeck’s fame may have spread further, were it not for the outbreak of war. In 1914, she was the only Finnish woman artist who took part in the prestigious Baltic Exhibition in Malmo, Sweden. The event was designed to show off the industry, art and culture of Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Russia but was interrupted when Germany and Russia entered the First World War on opposite sides of the conflict. Some 25 years later, Schjerfbeck’s work was due to be displayed in the USA for the first time, but the outbreak of the Second World War led to the exhibition being cancelled.
She lived with limited mobility after a childhood fall that broke her hip. Despite the barriers this would have posed to her, she travelled widely during her younger years, making trips to Vienna, St Petersburg, Florence, Paris and St Ives. While in England, her work was exhibited in a gallery on Piccadilly in London, close to where the Royal Academy of Arts still stands today. Schjerfbeck’s travels helped shape her unique style and she drew on everything she saw in Europe once back home in rural Finland. Although she wasn’t able to travel later in life, she never stopped painting. When she died in 1946 she had devoted more than 70 years to her art.
Schjerfbeck created self-portraits throughout her life but in her final two years, she drew and painted her own face more than 20 times, seemingly fascinated with the physical and psychological process of ageing. As she commented in a letter to a friend, “this way the model is always available, although it isn’t always pleasant to see oneself.” These later works show a move towards radically abstracted figuration that foreshadowed the portraiture of Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud and Frank Auerbach.
For earlier works see part 1 also.
This is part 2 of a 4-part series on the works of Helene Schjerfbeck:
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| 1880-84 Self-Portrait pencil 13 x 12.5 cm Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki |
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| 1881 Study in Paris oil on canvas 26 x 19.5 cm |
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| 1881 Two Profiles oil on panel 22 x 34 cm Ateneum, Helsinki Art Museum |
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| 1882 At the door of Linköping Prison in 1600 oil on canvas 131.5 x 99 cm Art Foundation Merita, Helsinki |
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| 1882 Charcoal Burner oil on canvas 89.5 x 120.5 cm Helsinki Art Museum |
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| 1882 Christina Banér prays for Mercy on her Husband oil on canvas 33 x 37 cm |
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| 1882 Dancing Shoes oil on canvas 55 x 64.5 cm Private Collection |
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| 1882 Interior, Woman Sewing pencil (sketchbook) Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki |
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| 1883 Feast of Tabernacles oil on canvas 115 x 172 cm Signe and Ane Gyllenberg Foundation, Helsinki |
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| 1883 Shadow on the Wall (Breton Landscape) oil on canvas Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki |
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| 1884 Figure Study oil on canvas 121.5 x 95.4 cm Finnish Cultural Association, Helsinki |
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| 1884 Portrait of Helena Westermarck oil on canvas 37.5 x 22.5 cm Gösta Serlachius Fine Arts Foundation, Mänttä, Finland |
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| 1884 Study of a Youngster charcoal and pencil 19.5 x 19.5 cm |
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| 1884 The Door oil on canvas 40.5 x 32.5 cm Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki |
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| 1884-85 Self-Portrait Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki |
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| 1885 Harjun Paavo 24.5 x 16 cm Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki |
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| 1885-90 The Girl From Barösund oil on canvas 58 x 65 cm Private Collection |
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| 1886 Head of a Girl oil on panel 23.5 x 15.5 cm Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki |
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| 1886 Mother and Child oil on canvas 72.5 x 92 cm Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki |
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| 1886 Sir Richard Southwell copy of Hans Holbein the Yoinger's painting (see below) oil on canvas 48 x 35.5 cm Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki |
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| 1536 Sir Richard Southwell by Hans Holbein the Younger oil and tempera on oak panel 47.5 x 38 cm Uffizi Galler, Florence |
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| 1886 The Death of Wilhelm von Schwerin oil on canvas 90 x 117.5 cm Turku Art Museum, Aurakatu, Finland |
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| 1887 Rococo Woman oil on canvas Ostrobothnian Museum, Vaasa |
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| 1887 The Bakery oil on canvas Ostrobothnian Museum, Vaasa |
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| 1887-1905 Portrait of a Woman pencil (sketchbook) Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki |
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| 1887-1905 St, Ives, Cornwall, UK ink (sketchbook) Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki |
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| c1887 Woman and Child oil on canvas Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki |
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| 1888 The Convalescent oil on canvas 92 x 107 cm Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki |
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| 1888-90 Street, St. Ives (UK) scrape drawing 22.5 x 21 cm Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki |
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| c1888 Chickens amongst Cornstooks oil on panel 42 x 52.5 cm Penlee House, Penzance, UK |
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| 1890-91 Tammisaari Church oil on canvas 21 x 33 cm Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki |
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| 1891 Young Girl Under the Birch Trees Signe and Ane Gyllenberg Foundation, Helsinki |
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| 1892 Glass of Lemonade, after Gerard ter Borch (see below) oil on canvas 66 x 53.5 cm Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki |
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| c1663 Glass of Lemonade by Gerard ter Borch oil on canvas 67 x 54 cm Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg |
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| 1892 Portrait of a Young Man Holding a Glove, after Frans Hals (see below) oil on canvas 80 x 66 cm Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki |
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| 1650 Portrait of a Young Man Holding a Glove oil on canvas 80 x 66.5 cm Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia |
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| 1893 Clothes Drying oil on canvas 39 x 54.5 cm Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki |
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| 1893 Lullaby oil on canvas Lauri and Lasse Reitz Foundation, Helsinki |
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| 1893 Portrait of Pope Innocent X, after Velázquez (see below) oil on canvas 48.5 x 40.5 cm Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki |
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| c1650 Portrait of Pope Innocent X by Diego Velázquez oil on canvas 141 x 119 cm Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome |
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| 1894 Cypresses, Fiesole oil on canvas? Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki |
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| 1894 The Infanta Margarita Teresa of Austria, after Diego Velázquez (see below) oil on canvas 128 x 100 cm Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki |
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| 1653-54 The Infanta Margarita Teresa of Austria by Diego Velázquez oil on canvas 128.5 x 100 cm Museum of Art History, Vienna |
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| 1894 Dr. John Chambers, after Hans Holbein (see below) oil on wood panel 65 x 47.5 cm Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki |
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| 1543 Dr. John Chambers by Hans Holbein oil on. oak panel 58 x 39.7 cm Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
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| 1895-1900 Churchgoers (Easter Morning) oil on canvas 70 x 95 cm Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki |
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| c1900-10 Portrait Study pencil on light wove paper 24.5 x 17.8 cm |
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| 1904 Azalea oil on canvas 36 x 45 cm Private Collection |
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| 1904 Girl Reading gouache on paper 57.5 x 43 cm Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki |
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| c1904 Fragment oil on canvas 31.5 x 34 cm Signe and Ane Gyllenberg Foundation, Helsinki |
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| 1905 The Seamstress (The Working Woman) oil on canvas 95.5 x 84.5 cm Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki |
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| 1907 Girls Reading pencil and watercolour on paper 67 x 79 cm Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki |
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| 1907 Granny oil on canvas 57 x 51 cm Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki |
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| 1907 Silence oil and tempera on canvas 45.5 x 36 cm Art Foundation Merita, Helsinki |
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| 1908 A Tapestry, a lottery prize, woven by Olga Björklund at The Friends of Finnish Handicrafts 102 x 83 cm |
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| 1908 The School Girl II (Girl in Black) oil on canvas 71 x 40.5 cm Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki |
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| 1908-09 Costume Picture I (Girl with Orange, The Baker's Daughter) oil on canvas 46 x 56.5 cm Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki |
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| 1909 Costume Picture II oil on canvas 89.5 x 63 cm Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki |
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