People here are dressed in a completely different way than in the north in Illinois, most of them are tanned brown, beautiful women in trousers, because everyone rides here and it is wonderful to see the little horses with pleasant-looking saddles and bridles. If you’ve taken khaki clothes with you, they’ll find good use, for they are common here and the most suitable clothing. The Indian type with a mixture of Spanish blood passes for the real thing; the full-bloods resemble [the Finnish author] Eino Leino – if he were better-looking.

(Akseli Gallen-Kallela /Mary Gallen-Kallela, Santa Fé, 8 August 1924)

Appearing in connection with the exhibition will be Akseli Amerikassa – Akseli ja Mary Gallen-Kallelan kirjeenvaihtoa vuosilta 1915-1931 a book on Akseli Gallen-Kallela in America by the foreign correspondent Kaari Raivio, issued by WSOY publishers. This book contains new information on the life of the artist and his family with reference to a large body of original material. Accompanying the publication of the book, the Gallen-Kallela Museum has compiled an exhibition focusing on the artist’s rarely seen material from North America: paintings, documents and photographs. The exhibition features, for the first time, moving images of Akseli Gallen-Kallela and his family in a film made in America.

Akseli Gallen-Kallela discovered reality tinged with the romance of the Kalevala epic not only in Finland but also abroad. In the early 1890s, the mental landscape of the Kalevala with its authentic folk characters was to be found in the border regions of Eastern Finland and Russian Karelia. A similar quest for authenticity led Gallen-Kallela in 1909 to British East Africa, where he hoped to discover Kalevala man, who he felt had disappeared from his homeland. During his stay in North America (1923-1926), Gallen-Kallela came to know the fascinating Indian culture of Taos, New Mexico. The rich geometric visual language of the Indians was also reflected in his illustrations for the so-called Great Kalevala, a planned lavish new version of the national epic.

Gallen-Kallela originally went to North America to seek works by him that had disappeared in 1915 at the Panama Pacific Exhibition in San Francisco. The trip was made possible through an invitation from the Art Institute of Chicago in late 1923. To the artist, the hectic metropolis with its flashing advertisements was a caricature of human culture. Gallen-Kallela was commissioned by the businessman Frank A. Hecht to paint a portrait of his wife and daughter and to design a logo for the Hecht Elevators company. The fee from the commission made it possible for Gallen-Kallela’s wife Mary and their daughter Kirsti to travel to America. In the autumn of 1924, Gallen-Kallela and his family moved into an Indian house rented from Mabel Luhan outside Taos. The house provided a stunning view of the surrounding snow-capped mountains. The peace and quiet of Taos inspired Gallen-Kallela to work, and he drew and painted landscapes, the local Indians and their rituals. Later in Chicago, he prepared the first illustrations for the planned new version of the Kalevala.