Hugo Gerhard Simberg (24 June 1873 – 12 July 1917) was a Finnish symbolist painter and

graphic artist A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography, or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, ...

Life and career

Photograph of Hugo Simberg working on the Tampere Cathedral frescoes

Simberg was born on 24 June 1873, at

Hamina Hamina (; sv, Fredrikshamn, , Sweden ) is a town and a municipality of Finland. It is located approximately east of the country's capital Helsinki, in the Kymenlaakso region, and formerly the province of Southern Finland. The municipality's pop ...

(in the original Swedish: ''Fredrikshamn''), Finland, the son of Colonel Nicolai Simberg and Ebba Matilda Simberg (née Widenius). In 1891, at the age of 18, he enrolled at the Drawing School of the Viipuri Friends of Art, and he also studied at the Drawing School of the Finnish Art Society from 1893 to 1895. Then, in 1895, he decided to become the private pupil of

Akseli Gallen-Kallela Akseli Gallen-Kallela (26 April 1865 – 7 March 1931) was a Finnish painter who is best known for his illustrations of the ''Kalevala'', the Finnish national epic. His work is considered a very important aspect of the Finnish national ident ...

at his wilderness studio Kalela in Ruovesi. He studied under Gallen-Kallela for three periods between 1895 and 1897. In 1896, Simberg went to London, and in 1897 to Paris and Italy. During these years he exhibited several works at the Finnish Artists' autumn exhibitions, including ''Autumn, Frost'', ''The Devil Playing'' and ''Aunt Alexandra'' (1898), which were well received. Critical success led to his being made a member of the Finnish Art Association and to his being appointed to teach at the Drawing School of the Viipuri Friends of Art. In 1904, he was commissioned to decorate the interior of St John's church in Tampere (now

Tampere Cathedral Tampere Cathedral ( fi, Tampereen tuomiokirkko, sv, Tammerfors domkyrka; originally known as St. John's Church) is a Lutheran church in Tampere, Finland, and the seat of the Diocese of Tampere. The building was designed in the National Romanti ...

), a project which he carried out with Magnus Enckell between 1904 and 1906. At the turn of the year 1907-08 he made a short visit to the United States. He also designed the UPM-Kymmene logo, the Griffon (1899). From around 1907 to 1913, he taught at the Drawing School of the Finnish Art Association at Ateneum. In 1910, he married Anni Bremer. They had two children, Tom and Uhra-Beata, the latter of whom became a rya artist. He died in Ähtäri on 12 July 1917. His biographer, Helena Ruuska, suspects that he battled an unknown disease, possibly

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, for a long time.

Style

Simberg's paintings emphasize mainly macabre and supernatural topics. Simberg's most famous painting is '' The Wounded Angel''. Its titular character appears in the shape of a winged angel with a bandaged head, borne on a stretcher by two somberly dressed boys, one of whom looks toward the viewer with a serious expression. The painting is the best known of the artist's works and is especially famous in Finland. The Finnish

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band

Nightwish Nightwish is a Finnish symphonic metal band from Kitee. The band was formed in 1996 by lead songwriter and keyboardist Tuomas Holopainen, guitarist Emppu Vuorinen, and former lead singer Tarja Turunen. The band soon picked up drummer Jukka N ...

released in 2007 a music video influenced by this painting, "

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". Another famous painting is '' The Garden of Death'', which, like many of Simberg's paintings, depicts a gloomy, otherworldly scene. The central figures are reminiscent of the classic black-clad Grim Reaper, but paradoxically are tending to gardens, traditionally symbols of birth or renewal.

Gallery

Notes

References

External links

Finnish National Gallery Collection of Simberg's works
also o
Flickr
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Simberg, Hugo 1873 births 1917 deaths People from Hamina People from Viipuri Province (Grand Duchy of Finland) Swedish-speaking Finns Symbolist painters 20th-century Finnish painters Finnish male painters 20th-century Finnish male artists