Åke Hellman
1915–2017 · Swedish-speaking Finnish still life and portrait painter, art professor
Åke Hellman (Helsinki, 19 July 1915 – Porvoo, 18 December 2017) was a Swedish-speaking Finnish painter of still lifes and portraits, and an art professor. Born in Helsinki when the country was the Grand Duchy of Finland, he lived a long life and became one of the longest-lived artists of his country's art scene.
He studied at the Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture from 1934 to 1938, where he met the painter Karin Wisuri, who became his wife and who was eleven days his senior. He worked as an art teacher at the University of Helsinki. In 1963 he received the Order of the Lion of Finland. His work centres on still life and portraiture, genres he pursued over many decades.
The couple had two children, Karl-Johan and Åsa, the latter a ceramist. Karin Hellman died in 2004. A biography by Ulla-Lena Lundberg and Erik Kruskopf, titled Människan och målaren (The Human and the Painter), appeared around his 90th birthday. Hellman turned 100 in 2015 and died in Porvoo at the age of 102.