From 4 November 2025 to 22 February 2026, the Petit Palais – Museum of Fine Arts de la Ville de Paris will present the first French retrospective dedicated to Pekka Halonen (1865–1933).
Entitled Pekka Halonen: An Ode to Finland, this exhibition, organised in collaboration with the Ateneum Art Museum (Helsinki), brings together more than 130 works from Finnish public and private collections. It traces the artist’s entire career and reveals his central role in the golden age of Finnish painting.
Pekka Halonen, a major figure in Finland’s golden age
Born in Lapinlahti in 1865, Pekka Halonen trained in Helsinki before moving to Paris in the early 1890s.
He attended the Julian and Colarossi academies and, in 1893, became a pupil of Paul Gauguin, an encounter that would prove decisive for his pictorial language.
Influenced by Japonism, plein air painting and Synthetism, Halonen created a body of work that combined Parisian influences with an attachment to his native land.
Helsinki, Ateneum Art Museum. (On loan to the Presidential Palace).
© Finnish National Gallery / Hannu Pakarinen
Painting Finland, between identity and modernity
Pekka Halonen’s work is part of the national romanticism and Karelianism movements, which celebrate Finnish landscapes and traditions in the face of Russian domination.
In 1900, his participation in the Finnish pavilion at the Universal Exhibition in Paris symbolically affirmed Finnish national identity.
His paintings celebrate nature, rural life and cultural resistance.
Halosenniemi, a way of life in harmony with nature
After several trips to France and Italy, Pekka Halonen chose to settle on the shores of Lake Tuusula in southern Finland. There he built his home and studio, Halosenniemi, a true refuge in the heart of the landscapes he tirelessly painted throughout the seasons.
Surrounded by his family and a community of artists and intellectuals, the artist cultivated a simple, self-sufficient lifestyle.
This intimate relationship with nature permeates all of his work, from luminous domestic scenes to vast, silent landscapes.
The painter of snow
More than any other Finnish artist, Pekka Halonen stands out as the great painter of snow. Fascinated by Nordic winters, he tirelessly explored the nuances of white, ice and winter light.
His snowy landscapes, sometimes verging on abstraction in the 1920s, exude an atmosphere of contemplation and profound serenity.
Helsinki, Ateneum Art Museum. © Finnish National Gallery / Yehia Eweis
The final section of the exhibition, entitled Symphony in White Major, pays tribute to this virtuosity and invites visitors to immerse themselves in the silence of Finnish nature.
A sensory experience at the Petit Palais
Designed as a truly immersive experience, the exhibition features an architectural scenography and multisensory mediation.
Olfactory devices, created with dsm-firmenich, and a meditative walk extend the discovery of the painter’s natural world and highlight the ecological and contemporary dimension of his work.
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FAQ
The exhibition runs from 4 November 2025 to 22 February 2026 at the Petit Palais in Paris.
It is being held at the Petit Palais – Museum of Fine Arts of the City of Paris, Avenue Winston-Churchill.
Pekka Halonen (1865–1933) was a major Finnish painter of the Finnish Golden Age, renowned for his landscapes and winter scenes.
The retrospective brings together more than 130 works from major Finnish collections.
He mainly painted snowy landscapes, exploring light, silence and shades of white.