This year (2012) will mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Sara Hildén Art Foundation. In 1962, Sara Hildén donated the works of art that she owned to the foundation that was named after her. The core of the collection was composed of the early works (from the period 1945–1963) of the painter Erik Enroth (1917–1975). The gala year thus opens with an extensive retrospective exhibition of Erik Enroth's work, which will be on display from 11 February to 6 May 2012.
The Sara Hildén Art Museum has previously held
exhibitions of Enroth's work, in 1980 and 1985. In addition, the painter's early works were shown in a small
exhibition in 1991. The collection of the Sara Hildén Foundation comprises
about 4600 works, in addition to which it received as a legacy about 3600 works
belonging to the art collection of the graphic artist Pentti Kaskipuro. The
foundation's collection contains 537 works by Erik Enroth. In connection with
the exhibition, the Sara Hildén Art Museum will publish a catalogue dealing
extensively with Enroth's oeuvre with contributions by Ulla Vihanta, Otso
Kantokorpi, Jyrki Siukonen and Tomi Moisio.
Finland’s postwar efforts to get the
country back on its feet inspired Erik Enroth to paint workers and factories.
These depictions emphasize the rigour of the work and the physical efforts of
the workers. Erik Enroth married Sara Hildén in 1949. He had a studio in the
Commerce building on Central Square, and he used local motifs such as factory
scenes and cityscapes in his works. Enroth made several ink drawings of the
factory halls on the Tampella site and the workers in them. He used these
drawings as sketches for his paintings. Among the other local Tampere subjects
that he used were scenes from the Pyynikki district, Tampella Power Station and
the Old Church on Central Square.
Erik Enroth's idiom has been described as
expressionist and cubist. Motifs that were close to him, such as depictions of
factories and workers, urban scenes, landscapes, portraits, still lifes and,
scenes from the circus and sporting events are recurrent themes in his oeuvre. Enroth
was an extremely productive artist, and he was capable of spending several
years on a single work. He travelled a lot, including trips to Spain and the
United States. In Spain, Enroth was captivated not only by the mountain scenery
but also by the local culture, and he was inspired to paint flamenco dancers,
bullfights and Spanish harvesters.
In his still life paintings, Enroth repeatedly used the motif of the ox skull; sometimes it is bloody and brutal, while in other paintings it has worn to a delicate pale yellow. Enroth was fascinated by death as the antithesis of the carnal and vigorous nature of life. The numerous paintings that Enroth made with a circus motif in the 1940s and 1950s constitute a particularly interesting group in his oeuvre. In his paintings of the circus milieu, Enroth emphasizes the dark side of the entertainment world, the harlequin worn out by hard work.
» Sara Hildén Art Museum