The Akseli Gallen-Kallela Museum Foundation is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2008, and in honour of the occasion the Gallen-Kallela Museum will stage the exhibition Behind the Scenes – The Life of the Gallen-Kallela Family compiled from the treasures of the museum's archives. Paintings, letters, books and objects collected by the artist provide a glimpse of the family's private life.
Akseli's interest in technology, ranging from aeroplanes and dirigibles to cars and boats, may surprise those who are accustomed to regarding him only as an aesthete. Akseli and his wife Mary studied the secrets of photography and film, and they were also interested in far-off lands: Greenland, Siberia and Japan, China etc. A popular book on travels of A. E. Nordenskiöld was read many times from cover to cover. The family's own long-distance journey came in 1909, when they travelled to Africa. Mary played the grand piano and guitar, and also the organ at Kalela. Her library of music is vast and highly interesting. It is not difficult guess that her favourite composer was Jean Sibelius. Mary and Akseli Gallen-Kallela studied the growing tobacco alongside other gardening pursuits, as befitted the household of a smoker. The family had a noteworthy collection of cookbooks, and it was international, as was only suitable. The exhibition presents the artist family's pastimes, homes and friends through works of art, objects, artefacts and archive materials.