artist: Paavo Airola (Finnish 1918-1983)
medium: oil on canvas
dimensions: 51 x 53 cm frame size (approx)
signed
circa late 1940s/early 1950s
presented in its original repainted / restored frame
* some aged related wear and craquelure in paint, but the painting presents very well and is stable
** last image is a self portrait by Airola (shown here for reference)
AU $960 (approx US $625 / 590 EUROS / 97,500 yen / 7495 GBP - for exact current conversion visit xe.com)
artist bio
Paavo Olavi Airola was born 14 June, 1918 in Karelia, Finland. He was a Finnish painter.
He began his art studies in Helsinki privately from 1941-42, and then studied in Sweden at Otte Sköld's s malarskola (Painting School) in 1947, and at Isaac Grünewald's malarskola and Académie Libre in Stockholm from 1947-48 (studying at these two latter schools with Börje Hedlund as painting teacher). He took private study trips to Paris, Denmark, Holland, England, Russia and Mexico.
He has had solo exhibitions in Sundsvall and Amal in 1947, in Gävle Folkets hus in 1947 and in Stockholm in 1948 and 1950. He exhibited in a number of the Gävleborg County konstförenings utställning (Art Association) exhibitions.
Airola was primarily a painter of landscapes, still lifes and portraits and he painted in a simplified, puristic abstract and non-objective style. He worked predominantly in oil or watercolours.
In 1952 he emigrated to Canada and settled in Colborne, Ontario. He worked as an art teacher conducting art classes in Trenton, Belleville and Cobourg. Airola also pursued a career in nutrition and natural healing, and his writings were published in a number of books on the subject.
Examples of his work are held in public collections including the National Gallery in Stockholm, Orebros Museum of Fine Art, Jämtland's museum, Östersund, Hudikswal Art Museum, and in North America at the London Art Museum, Ontario and the Zacks Collection, New York.
Airola passed away in 1983.