Albert Edelfelt

Albert Edelfelt (1854–1905) is one of Finland’s most beloved artists. He was a pioneering pleinairist and artistic innovator who is remembered as a masterful portrayer of light. Displaying exquisite technical skill, he was equally adept at capturing the crisp light of winter, the soft translucence of the northern summer, the menacing gloom of a storm raging at sea, or the sparkle of theatre lights. Edelfelt was a modern artist who portrayed people from all walks of life, from vacationing gentry and fashionable city folk to working-class labourers and rural fishermen and farmers. This volume by art historian and historian Maria Vainio-Kurtakko examines the artist’s life and work in the light of contemporaneous Nordic and European social concerns of his era.