Self-Portrait with Silver Background

Helene Schjerfbeck’s pensive, melancholic paintings offer an intimate insight into the life of an outsider. An artist of compassion and great intelligence, Schjerfbeck progressed Finnish painting further than any contemporary, and perhaps it was her vantage point away from the main artistic centres that allowed her to forge such a distinct style, and broad range of reference, from the Old Masters to the French Impressionists. Born in Helsinki, Schjerfbeck suffered a hip injury at the age of four which prevented her from attending school but, aged eleven, she attended the Finish Art Society Drawing School at the expense of Adolf von Becker. Her father’s death in 1876 after contracting tuberculosis left the family impoverished; however, Professor G. Asp paid for Schjerfbeck’s enrolment at von Becker’s private academy. Schjerfbeck’s first award was third prize in a competition organised by the Finnish Art School in 1879. The following year, she received a travel grant from the Imperial Russian Senate to go to Paris, where she painted with Helena Westermarck before studying with Léon Bonnat. In 1881, Schjerfbeck attended the Académie Colarossi, where she studied until 1884. Throughout

Helsinki