Jorma Hautala: Songs and Other Works

Galerie Anhava is delighted to present Jorma Hautala's exhibition Songs and Other Works, a brilliantly luminous and unhurriedly evocative selection of the paintings, works on paper, prints, and sketches from four decades. The show highlights key aspects of Hautala's sustained and wide-ranging practice: his exploration of colour and form, the significance of sketching as part of the creative process, and the connections of visual art with music and architecture.

The exhibition centres on large-scale paintings, which are accompanied by a selection of works in gouache, coloured pencil, and mixed media. Muted and bright tones and shimmering, breathing surfaces resonate throughout the works, with large, simplified forms giving a precise rhythm to the paintings. Work titles such as Lingering Chord, Songs, and Tango point to the artist’s bond with music. The show also features previously unexhibited material from Hautala's studio. The works and documentation were selected in collaboration with the family of the artist, who passed away in autumn 2025.

Hautala was a free thinker whose curious and uncompromising eye ranged beyond the visual arts into numerous fields of creative design. He collaborated with architects, designed public artworks, worked as a graphic designer, and made an impact as a teacher, writer, and lecturer in the field of art. Hautala remained actively at work throughout his long life.

Jorma Hautala (1941–2025) studied at the Free Art School from 1959 to 1960 and at the Institute of Industrial Arts from 1962 to 1966. Hautala came to prominence in the 1960s, a period of internationalisation for Finnish art, and he was actively involved in the Aloha and Dimensio groups, which broke down traditional boundaries within the art world. His works are held in numerous major collections in Finland and internationally, including the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., the British Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the Albertina in Vienna, the Gothenburg Museum of Art, the Alvar Aalto Museum, and the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art. In recent years, Hautala’s works have been exhibited at, among others, the Hämeenlinna Art Museum, Kunstsilo in Kristiansand, EMMA, and the Kuntsi Museum of Modern Art in Vaasa. He was awarded the Pro Finlandia Medal in 1989 and the Commander's Cross of the Order of the Lion of Finland in 2001. Hautala served as artist professor from 1995 to 2000.