Frans Alvar Alfred Cawén (8 June 1886, Korpilahti - 3 March 1935

Helsinki Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...

) was a Finnish

expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

Biography

Frans Alvar Alfred Cawen was born in central Finland on 8 June 1886 at Korpilahti, the son of the Revd. Frans Cawen and Eleanora Cawen (née Boije af Gennas), both of whom were interested in music and art. Several well-known artists were friends of his parents. As a young man Cawen studied at the Academy of Fine Arts (Finland) between 1905 and 1907, and in Paris between 1908 and 1909 at the studio of Simon Cottet. He had his first exhibition in Finland in 1910, but in 1912 he returned to Paris, from where he traveled to Brittany and Spain. In late 1916 Cawen became a founder member of the November Group, which was a Finnish group of expressionists and cubists. After the first World War he travelled in 1919 to Denmark, Italy, Spain and France; and in that year became a teacher at the Drawing School of the Finnish Art Society, where he continued to teach until 1921. In 1924 he travelled again in Italy, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. In 1929 he became a member of the Fine Art Academy of Finland; and from then until 1935 he was chairman of the Artists' Association of Finland. In Finland Cawen lived near Porvoo at Ilola (his mother's childhood home). Among his works are

altarpiece An altarpiece is a painting or sculpture, including relief, of religious subject matter made for placing at the back of or behind the altar of a Christian church. Though most commonly used for a single work of art such as a painting or sculpture, ...

s for churches in

Mänttä Mänttä is a former town and municipality of Finland. It was merged with the municipality of Vilppula to form Mänttä-Vilppula on 1 January 2009. The place name ''Mänttä'' comes from an old house which Tuomas Niilonpoika Mäntsä (1570–1 ...

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, Lapinlahti, and Simpele. He died at Helsinki on 3 March 1935. He is buried in the Hietaniemi Cemetery in Helsinki. He married Ragni Cawén (1891-1981), a painter, who following his death continued to paint; the

Didrichsen Art Museum Didrichsen Art Museum (, ) is an art museum in Helsinki, Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with th ...

owns works by both artists.Didrichsen Art Museum exhibit: The artist couple Alvar and Ragni Cawén
Finnguide, retrieved July 29, 2010.
Didrichsen Art Museum description
.

Gallery

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cawen, Alvar 1886 births 1935 deaths People from Jyväskylä People from Häme Province (Grand Duchy of Finland) Finnish Expressionist painters Burials at Hietaniemi Cemetery