Akseli Gallen-Kallela [SEP] native language
Akseli Gallen-Kallela
Akseli Gallen-Kallela (26 April 1865 – 7 March 1931) was a Finnish painter who is best known for his illustrations of the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic ("illustration, below"). His work is considered very important for the Finnish national identity. He changed his name from Gallen to Gallen-Kallela in 1907.
Life.
Gallen-Kallela was born Axel Waldemar Gallén in Pori, Finland in a Swedish-speaking family. His father Peter Gallén worked as police
son of Aivi Gallen-Kallela and Matti Sirén. He is the great-grandson of Akseli Gallen-Kallela, a painter whose work is considered to be extremely important to Finnish national identity.
Sirén attended College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he majored in art history and took courses on philosophy and Italian language and culture. After obtaining his B.A. in 1993, he pursued an M.A. at the New York University Institute of Fine Arts. There he wrote two qualifying papers—one in his major field