Cultural Centre Jaatsi

My art class will have another exhibition, this time in the Cultural Centre Jaatsi in Sastamala. Today we hanged our paintings on walls and the exhibition will open next Tuesday.

Jaatsi is the childhood home of Akseli Gallen-Kallela (national artist of Finland). 

Akseli Gallen-Kallela’s (1865-1935) parents Peter Wilhelm and Mathilda Gallén and their family owned and lived in Jaatsi 1868-1884. As a young man P.W. Gallén was rural chief of police for the crown in Tyrvää. After the death of his wife in 1855 he married Mathilda Wahlroos. During the years of the great famine 1867-68, Tyrvää’s rural chief of police P. W. Gallén commissioned a manor house-style main building on the Jaatsi estate. The new house rose, according to Akseli, “in the forest near the Vammaskoski rapids, in an area where bears frolicked not long ago. 

The Jaatsi house was the ideal environment for the artist-to-be to grow up in. The large evergreen firs shielded the gardens from the cold winds. On the south side was a large garden, which Akseli’s mother, Mathilda, was particularly fond of, and where she planted many decorative trees and countless apple trees. The views over the waters, islands, beaches and bulrushes of Liekovesi, the Vammaskoski rapids and St Olaf’s Church in Tyrvää were firmly imprinted on Akseli’s mind as he was growing up. The sights, scents and sounds of the many outbuildings, barn, stable and grain stores gave the lively boy something to do and explore. The Gallén boys were known to be very active; when the commotion started to be too much for their father, the boys would be driven to their own den, known as ’The Rat Cabin’.

Akseli’s father, Peter Wilhelm, was ahead of his time in many ways, and he was involved in establishing many new projects. He started the first dairy on his estate and was also instrumental in establishing Tyrvää’s first library. While he was man of the house at Jaatsi P.W. Gallén worked as a lawyer. He died suddenly on a court trip to Loimijoki in 1879, aged just 62.

Akseli’s mother was naturally artistic and, noticing Akseli’s artistic talent, Mathilda encouraged her son to pursue art and had no objections when he changed schools to attend drawing school. During the fairytale years at Jaatsi Akseli drew and painted diligently. 



+14,8°C, mostly sunny