Frequently Asked Questions

Do you have a question concerning Akseli Gallen-Kallela, his art or The Gallen-Kallela Museum?

Please, check first if the answer is already in our listing of frequently asked questions:
I have a very old book that was illustrated by Gallen-Kallela.  The first story is The Seven Brothers in Finnish. Do you have any information about this book?

I have a very old book that was illustrated by Gallen-Kallela.  The first story is The Seven Brothers in Finnish. Do you have any information about this book?

Seitsemän veljestä (Seven brothers) is a novel written by Aleksis Kivi. It is very well known in Finland and has been published several times, in 1870 for the first time. It tells the story of seven brothers of the Jukola family and their adventures in life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seitsem%C3%A4n_veljest%C3%A4. Akseli Gallen-Kallela admired Aleksis Kivi and was impressed by the story of Seitsemän veljestä. Gallen-Kallela thought that Kivi’s depictions of nature and the people helped him understand the poetry and the style of the Kalevala, as Gallen-Kallela was creating his versions of illustrations of the Kalevala epic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalevala. Seitsemän veljestä with Gallen-Kallela’s illustrations was first published in 1908 by the publishing house Weilin + Göös. Severel re-releases have been made in the 1900’s. His way of illustrating Seitsemän veljestä became the norm for the book for a long time. The Finnish National Gallery has many of the original illustrations Gallen-Kallela did for the book in their collections. You can find them here http://kokoelmat.fng.fi/app?page=2&si=http%3A%2F%2Fkansallisgalleria.fi%2FE39.Actor_D1FDE5CB-3ACA-4B39-928D-B100228C91F4&lang=en