The Petit Palais is paying tribute, for the first time in France, to Pekka Halonen (1865–1933), one of the major figures of the golden age of Finnish painting. With this unprecedented retrospective, the museum continues its exploration of the great foreign artists for whom Paris, at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, was a fundamental catalyst. Like his elder Albert Edelfelt (1854-1905) and his great friend Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1865-1931), Pekka Halonen completed his training in Paris. It was with Paul Gauguin, whose pupil he was in 1893, that he found his path and forged his ideal: to sing the soul of Finland through its landscapes and ancestral traditions, and to live his art in accordance with his commitments. Born in Lapinlahti, a town in central-eastern Finland, in Northern Savonia, and coming from a peasant background, Pekka Halonen was immersed from an early age in this primitive land, whose authenticity he would strive to restore. He anchored his attachment to his native land by building a house-studio, Halosenniemi, along Lake Tuusula, north of Helsinki. There, he tirelessly painted the spectacle of nature, following the rhythm of the seasons and the changing light. The majestic symphony of snow, which fascinated the artist, was his favorite field of experimentation, which he pursued to the point of abstraction. He wrote his own modernity there, constantly renewed in the light of the Parisian avant-garde—Japonism, plein air painting, Synthetism, and more.
The exhibition, which brings together more than a hundred works from Finland's largest public and private collections, was produced in partnership with the Ateneum Art Museum – National Gallery of Finland (Helsinki).
The Petit Palais would like to thank dsm-firmenich and perfumer Daphné Bugey for creating bespoke fragrances and conceiving olfactory installations for the Pekka Halonen exhibition.
General curators
Annick Lemoine, General Curator of Heritage, Director of the Petit Palais
Anna-Maria von Bonsdorff, Director of the Ateneum Art Museum, Helsinki
Anne-Charlotte Cathelineau, head curator of heritage, in charge of the Petit Palais sculpture collection
