Ismo Olavi Hölttö (born 12 February 1940 in Espoo) is a Finnish
documentary photographer known for his
monochrome portraits of
Romani people and others living in the cities and countryside of Finland in the 1960s, a time of rapid societal change.
Life and career
Hölttö was born in 1940. In 1955, he started as an apprentice goldsmith with the
Helsinki firm of G. Buchert. He studied at the
School of Applied Arts
A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compuls ...
, whose vocational evening courses were held in the
Ateneum museum building. From then until 1970 he worked at the firm of Westerback; he left after winning the State Photography Prize and set up an advertising company, Rykämä. The photography for which he is known was almost complete by this point: thereafter, his professional photography left little time for him to pursue his own photographic interests.
[Elina Heikka, "The decisive moment of introducing oneself"; within Ismo Hölttö, ''Valokuvia'' = ''Photographs'' (Helsinki: , 2008). The four pages of this prefatory essay are not marked with page numbers, which have been added for this article.]
Hölttö became interested in photography via two colleagues in the jewelry shop where he worked. He joined the Helsinki Camera Club and became friends with , who had joined at about the same time and was able to give him technical advice. After initial attempts at landscape, Hölttö found his métier: portraiture. He pursued this vigorously, seldom photographing anything else.
In summer 1966 Hölttö and Savolainen visited
Northern Karelia. They had had light-hearted intentions but found the trip unexpectedly worthwhile, and pursued the work during the coming years. In 1970, Savolainen arranged their work into the photobook , published in time for Christmas. The two continued their partnership, bringing out the books (1972) and (1981), on the Romani people and the elderly respectively. Hölttö's portraiture was complemented by Savolainen's concentration on communities.
Soon after becoming seriously interested in photography, Hölttö bought a
Rolleiflex medium format twin lens reflex camera, whose design encouraged or even enforced a certain deliberation. From 1968, he added a
35 mm camera;
but for the majority of his better-known portraits, his technique was somewhat similar to that of a studio photographer.
Such an extensive series of portraits was unprecedented for Finland, and Hölttö's work has sometimes been compared with
August Sander
August Sander (17 November 1876 – 20 April 1964) was a German portrait and documentary photographer. His first book ''Face of our Time'' (German: ''Antlitz der Zeit'') was published in 1929. Sander has been described as "the most important Ger ...
's (English as '). But whereas Sander had followed a self-imposed assignment of photographing people having a list of occupations, Hölttö photographed as he wished.
Hölttö's photography in Northern Karelia concentrated on smallholders and others on the lower rungs of society, but his coverage in Helsinki was broader, showing middle-class people and even
hippie
A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...
s.
Together with Savolainen and , Hölttö led social documentary, then the dominant trend of Finnish photography, in the 1970s. Using a
Rolleiflex, he photographed both Helsinki and the Finnish countryside:
North Karelia, Savonia
[Savonia: Northern Savonia and Southern Savonia.] and
Oulu
Oulu ( , ; sv, Uleåborg ) is a city, municipality and a seaside resort of about 210,000 inhabitants in the region of North Ostrobothnia, Finland. It is the most populous city in northern Finland and the fifth most populous in the country after: ...
.
[Exhibition notice](_blank)
Ateneum. Retrieved 3 February 2018. He shot the main body of his work during the ten years between 1962 and 1971 while working as a goldsmith.
[Exhibition notice](_blank)
Rosphoto, 2016. Retrieved 3 February 2018. When he started documenting the Finnish people, he was only 22; when he ended this series he had turned 31.
The reproductions of Hölttö's negatives have changed considerably over time. In the 1960s he favoured high contrast, close
cropping, and glossy paper. The early books used
duotone offset printing
Offset printing is a common printing technique in which the inked image is transferred (or "offset") from a plate to a rubber blanket and then to the printing surface. When used in combination with the lithographic process, which is based on t ...
, with little or no space separating the images. His large 1989 book (English edition in 1991 as ''People in the Lead Role'') used
tritone printing for reduced and subtler contrast, with more relaxed cropping.
His works have been exhibited in Finland,
Russia,
Denmark, France and Lithuania.
Tarptautinis fotomeno festivalis Kaunas Photo 08
, Lietuvos Fotografija, 2008. Retrieved 3 February 2018.
Books of Hölttö's works
* and Ismo Hölttö (photographs), (text). ''Suomea tämäkin.'' (This too is Finland.) Jyväskylä: Gummerus, 1970. In Finnish.
*Kari Huttunen (text), Ismo Hölttö and Mikko Savolainen (photographs). ''Raportti suomen mustalaisista.'' (A report on the Roma of Finland.) Jyvaskylassa: K. J. Gummerus Osakeyhtion, 1972. . In Finnish.
*Mikko Savolainen (text and photographs) and Ismo Hölttö (photographs). ''Vanhuksia.'' (The Elderly.) lomantsi: M. Savolainen 1982. . In Finnish.
*Ismo Hölttö. ''Ihminen pääosassa. Kuvia suomalaisista.'' Helsinki: Ismo Hölttö, 1989. . In Finnish.
*Ismo Hölttö. ''People in the Lead Role: Photographs of Finns.'' Helsinki: Ismo Hölttö, 1991. . In English.
*Ismo Hölttö. ''Pieniä Ihmisiä.'' Helsinki: Erweko Painotuote, 2002. . In Finnish.
*Ismo Hölttö. ''Valokuvia'' = ''Photographs.'' Helsinki: Finnish Museum of Photography, 2008. With an essay by Elina Heikka in Finnish and English.[Both this book and another, quite distinct book share . This number appears both within the copyright page and on the back cover of ''Valokuvia'' = ''Photographs,'' which is no. 25 in the series Suomen Valokuvataiteen Museon Julkaisusarja (), published by the . No. 24 in the same series is Jukka Kukkonen and Elina Heikka, ''Punamustavalkea: 1918 Kuvat'' (2008). Bot]
this 2012 page about publications available from the museum's shop
an
this 2010 description of the publisher's productions
list both books with this single ISBN. Searches in OPACs for the ISBN usually bring no. 24; a search of WorldCat in February 2018 showed no record of no. 25. The page
Ismo Höltön kirjaharvinaisuus
, announcing publication of ''Valokuvia'' = ''Photographs'' and incidentally describing its rather odd production process, shows a photograph of it. The book uses plates made for ''Ihminen pääosassa'' (1989).Finnish Parliament Annex
The Finnish Parliament Annex ( fi, Pikkuparlamentti, sv, Lilla parlamentet "Little Parliament") is a building in the centre of Helsinki, Finland. It houses offices for about one hundred members of the Parliament of Finland. The building was built ...
.
**''Konst i Lilla Parlamentet: från Xylotek till Smultronstället.'' elsinki iksdagen 2008. . Swedish translation.
**''Art in the Little Parliament: From Wood People to Past Knights.'' elsinki duskunta 2008. . English translation.
Notes
References
External links
* (holtto.com)
Photographs by Hölttö
Young Gallery. Retrieved by the Wayback Machine on 6 April 2016.
* Hester Keijser,
Portrait therapy: Ismo Hölttö
, Mrs Deane, 27 April 2009. Keijser discusses variation in prints from the same negatives, in particular whether or not they are cropped.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Holtto, Ismo
1940 births
Finnish photographers
Portrait photographers
Living people