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33. REINO HIETANEN,
16 March - 5 May 1986
Reino Hietanen (b. 1932 Äyräpää) is
one of the most important Finnish artists represented in the collection
of the Sara Hildén Foundation. The 21 paintings from the collection
formed the nucleus of the exhibition. The exhibition filled the whole
upper floor of the museum, and included about 100 works from 1960-86.
Reino Hietanen held his first solo exhibition in Helsinki
in 1963. With his numerous exhibitions in Finland and abroad, he has established
his position as one of the leading figures in modern Finnish painting.
He was voted Artist of the Year by Helsinki Festival in 1973.
His first showings in exhibitions at the beginning of
the 1960's indicated that Reino Hietanen had grasped and assimilated the
main stylistic features of Abstract Expressionism. Even though his paintings
were basically abstract, the variation in density and colour intensity
of his motifs, together with their freely curling and explosively whirling
forms, conjured up images of organic nature, of plants, and of human
figures.
The works are based on variations of an inner frame. Free, expressive
curving motifs and calligraphic signs, "action writing" rather
than "action painting", are placed in a dense mass in the picture's
pale-coloured centre, which is surrounded by a dark, outer frame-like
zone. The contrast between line and surface is enhanced in some works
by collage-like compositions, in which paper and cardboard of different
textures and colour shades are combined with drawing.
The paintings became larger in size during the second
half of the decade. There is a new force and dynamism, although stylistic
features found in previous works have been preserved. The inner frame
motif has taken on a new form as a net or grid-like structure. The earlier
Tachist marks are now easier to perceive as human figures or as crowds
of people. The overlapping frame motifs can be seen as blocks of flats
or as the chequered patterns of large cities. In the 1970's Hietanen's
whirling visions of urban life became more subdued. Horizontal lines began
to dominate in his still-lifes, interiors and landscapes, and as a contrast
to these, the artist develops different kinds of perpendicular elements.
Vertical motifs, whether they are carpets, sheets, or tablecloths drying
on the clothesline in the garden, take on the frontal direction on the
picture surface.
Reino Hietanen has been noted, from the very beginning,
for his technical skill and versality in expressing the spirit of the
times with a varied range of materials. This clearly shows the intelligent
approach the artist takes towards questions of art, in spite of his having
started out as an exponent of Abstract Expressionism. It seems appropriate
that, in his more recent works, Hietanen has adopted almost constructivist
solutions, in which urban landscapes and sections of the interior of a
house have been reduced to monumental, partly geometrical symbols.
Catalogue:
Reino Hietanen
1986, 51 pages
Sara Hildén Art Museum Publication 26
ISSN 0357-3001
Price FIM 10
6,357 visitors attended the exhibition.
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