Peder Balke – The Spell of the Arctic

The monographic exhibition presents Peder Balke´s life and work to a Finnish audience for the first time. Stormy seascapes, moonlight, northern lights, glaciers and snow-capped mountain ranges are recurrent themes. The paintings conjure up a world that few people know, even today, and which is threatened by climate change.

Peder Balke was one of the earliest painters to travel north of the Arctic Circle already in the 1830s. The Arctic landscape continued to inspire him to experiment with new painting techniques decades after his journey. Nature plays the main role in Balke’s paintings.

The exhibition, produced by the Sinebrychoff Art Museum, features 42 paintings by Balke, as well as works by his artist contemporaries from Norwegian and Swedish collections. The exhibition has been co-produced with Norway’s Nordic Institute of Art and curated by the Institute’s Director Knut Ljøgodt, Dr.philos.,and the Director of the Sinebrychoff Art Museum Kirsi Eskelinen, PhD.