Ada Maria Thilén (May 10, 1852 – June 14, 1933) was a Finnish painter known for her landscapes.

Life

Ada Thilén was born in

Kuopio Kuopio (, ) is a Finnish city and municipality located in the region of Northern Savonia. It has a population of , which makes it the most populous municipality in Finland. Along with Joensuu, Kuopio is one of the major urban, economic, and cult ...

in 1852. Her left eye was damaged from birth, and she had to use a glass eye for the rest of her life. Her father was the Senate Treasury Chamber Councilor Julius Gustaf Reinhold Thilén (1812–1887) and her mother was Vilhelmina Angelika Elisabet EhrnroothGeni.com : Ada Maria Thilén
/ref> (1827–1890). Thilen studied with the Finnish-Swedish painter

Hjalmar Munsterhjelm Magnus Hjalmar Munsterhjelm (19 October 1840 – 2 April 1905) was a Finnish landscape painter. Biography Munsterhjelm was born at Toivoniemi Manor of Tuulos, Finland. He was the son of Gustaf Riggert Munsterhjelm (1806-1872) and his wife and M ...

at the

Royal Swedish Academy of Arts The Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts ( sv, Kungliga Akademien för de fria konsterna), commonly called the Royal Academy, is located in Stockholm, Sweden. An independent organization that promotes the development of painting, sculpture, architec ...

in Stockholm and under

Léon Bonnat Léon Joseph Florentin Bonnat (20 June 1833 – 8 September 1922) was a French painter, Grand Officer of the Légion d'honneur and professor at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. Early life Bonnat was born in Bayonne, but from 1846 to 1853 he lived in Ma ...

and Jean-Léon Gérôme in Paris. She went on painting trips, including Brittany in 1886. Thilén participated in exhibitions of Finnish Artists in 1893, 1895, 1897, 1900, 1901, 1903, 1906 and 1924. Thilén painted landscapes and portraits in oils and also worked in pastel and watercolor. Her works are stylistically representative of French realism of the 1880s, which also had Italian influences. The Finnish National biography believes that her profile is less than her contemporaries because of her modesty and because she has not attracted the same level of academic interest. In 1896 she painted her own self portrait. She continued to use a glass eye and this did not seem to affect her success as an artist. She had a long friendship with three other female artists: Helene Schjerfbeck,

Maria Wiik Maria Catharina Wiik (3 August 1853 – 19 June 1928) was a Finnish painter. She worked principally with still life, genre images, landscape paintings and portraits. Biography Wiik was born in Helsinki. She was the daughter of architect Erik ...

and Helena Westermarck (with whom she once shared a studio). These Swedish and Finnish female painters all studied together between 1876 and 1878 under Professor Adolf von Becker. She debuted as an artist in 1876, initially representing landscapes, with an idealistic and romantic vision of art, influenced by her first teachers. In 1880 she began to study in Paris at the Trélat Academy, where she had the French painters

and Jean-Léon Gérôme as professors. Other Finnish artists studying in the Parisian academy at the time included Helene Schjerfbeck, Helena Westermarck, Ellen Favorin and Alma Engblom, who along with Thilén, went on to study at the Académie Colarossi, under the tutelage of realist salon artists Gustave Courtois and Louis-Joseph-Raphaël Collin. Her Parisian teachers, along with the influence exerted on her by the Finnish painters

Fanny Churberg Fanny Churberg (12 December 1845, in Vaasa – 10 May 1892, in Helsinki) was a Finland, Finnish landscape painter. Biography Her father, Matias Churberg, was a doctor from a family of farmers and her mother Maria was the daughter of the vicar in L ...

and Hilda Granstedt during the summer of 1880, were key in Thilén's evolution towards portrait painting and the typical French realism of the time, with Italian influences , which is reflected in her most famous work, The Blue Bell Girl of 1890. Thilén used oil paints, as well as watercolors and pastels , and her works were usually small in size and nature-themed. Her work is characterized by simplicity, emotion and mastery of drawing and color. In 1896 Thilen painted her self-portrait. Thilén made trips to several destinations, in which she dedicated herself to painting landscapes and portraits. Her work exists in several private collections. * ''Playing boy'' : oil painting. 1882 * ''A Breton country house'' : oil painting. 1884 * ''Oyster pickers'' : oil painting. 1885 * ''Spinner'' : oil painting. 1888 * ''Fruit arrangement'' : oil painting. 1896 * ''Self portrait'' : oil painting. 1896 * ''From the southern harbor'' : oil painting. about 1902–1903 * ''Beach landscape'' : watercolor. 1910s

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thilen, Ada 1852 births 1933 deaths People from Kuopio Finnish women painters