Romeo and Juliet, 1992
acrylic on plywood
2 x 84 x 42 cm
Jorma Hautala (born 1941) is Finland’s leading classic name in colourist Concretism. He carries on the tradition of the Bauhaus and Russian Concretism. Among Finnish artists, his predecessors have included Birger Carlstedt, Ernst Mether-Borgström, Lars-Gunnar Nordström and Sam Vanni, and Timo Aalto, Juhana Blomstedt and Matti Kujasalo are his close contemporaries.
Jorma Hautala is a living icon of modern art in Finland. And as befits an icon, tradition is present in his art, its form but also the intellectual content and values of tradition.
Charismatic and spirited, Hautala makes us remember and to feel the truth and significance of the fact that art can contain inalienable values: the tensed balance of form, the reverberation of colour, beauty and wisdom.
Jorma Hautala has the need, the will and the ability to paint in this genre like no one else in Finland. Therefore, his art is important, and that is why he is a classic.
Hautala has always worked systematically. He first thinks and plans. Then he draws the first sketch in pencil on graph paper, which may be followed by a drawing in coloured pencil. He then prepares a gouache sketch, and it is only after this stage that he makes the final painting in acrylic.
This exhibition shows for the first time the sketches and studies of the various stages alongside the completed works. Also on display are Hautala’s entries in competitions for public works of art, some of which have been realised in public spaces. Jorma Hautala has produced over ten public works of art. He has also collaborated with architects with almost twenty colour schemes for buildings designed by, among others, Erkki Kairamo, Juhani Pallasmaa, Kristian Gullichsen, Eino Leinonen and Esa Piironen. Jorma Hautala has also a significant oeuvre in prints and applied graphics.
Jorma Hautala was awarded the Pro Finlandia Medal in 1989 and the decoration of Commander of the Order of the Lion of Finland in 2001. He held the position of artist professor from 1995 to 2000.
