ArtistFinnish
Lennart Segerstråle
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Lennart Rafael Segerstråle was born on 17 June 1892 in the rural municipality surrounding Helsinki, in what is now Vantaa, into a Swedish-speaking Finnish family. He first studied at the Fine Arts programme at the University of Helsinki under the painter and professor Eero Järnefelt (1863-1937), an encounter that grounded him in the Finnish naturalist tradition before he moved outward into monumental work. In 1929 he deepened his technical formation in fresco and mosaic at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, studying under Joakim Skovgaard, and that training would shape the rest of his career.
During the 1920s and 1930s Segerstråle established himself as Finland's foremost animal painter. His detailed renderings of birds and wildlife, often set against the spare landscapes of Lapland and the Finnish archipelago, earned him widespread recognition. Watercolours from Lapland and other Nordic wilderness scenes remain among the most frequently encountered works on the secondary market. But the naturalist dimension of his practice coexisted with a deepening commitment to Christian and humanist values that drew him, from the mid-1930s onward, increasingly toward monumental and religious commissions.
The central achievement of his life came with the Finlandia frescoes in the main hall of the Bank of Finland's headquarters in Helsinki. Commissioned in 1938, the two large wall paintings - "Finland vaknar" (Finland Wakes) and "Finland bygger" (Finland Builds) - were completed in spring 1943, in the middle of the Continuation War. The works present a vision of the Finnish land and its people rooted in labour, endurance, and national continuity. They remain among the most significant examples of monumental painting in Finland and are still in situ in the Bank building.
Beyond the Bank of Finland, Segerstråle completed a substantial body of church commissions across Finland and Sweden: stained-glass windows, altar paintings, and large-scale frescoes. Notable among these is the altar fresco "The Source of Life" in the Rovaniemi Church in Lapland, measuring 14 by 11 metres and among the largest altar paintings in Finland. He also designed the stained-glass window "Skapelsens lovsång" (Praise to Creation) for Kristuskyrkan in Helsinki in 1928. His political paintings, including "World in Flames" - signed on 1 September 1939, the day Germany invaded Poland - are held in the Ateneum Art Museum, Helsinki, where they have been shown as rare examples of modernist political painting in the Finnish tradition. He received the title of Professor in 1963. He died on 11 April 1975.
On the auction market, Segerstråle's work appears predominantly through Finnish houses, with Hagelstam and Co and Bukowskis Helsinki together accounting for the majority of the 16 works indexed on Auctionist. Prices have been recorded in both SEK and EUR, with a Lapland watercolour reaching 1,715 SEK and a 1962 landscape watercolour achieving 400 EUR. The emphasis on paintings and works on paper reflects the typical composition of his market, where naturalist studies and Lapland subjects attract consistent collector interest.