Claire Aho´s exhibition "City Life" was held June 4 - September 5, 2010 at the Helsinki City Hall´s Virka Gallery
Young couples in love celebrating Labour Day, daredevils in a twirling carousel, market vendors behind their stands…
In 1968 photographer Claire Aho participated in a Nordic photography exhibition in Kiel, Germany with her images of Helsinki.
These photographs, which feature surprising compositions and offer fascinating depictions of the era, are now being exhibited in Finland for the first time. Claire Aho, born 1925 in Helsinki and now living in Stockholm, is the "Grand Old Lady of Finnish Photography" with a huge amount of portraits, posters, fashion plates and artistic photos. She began her career as a photographer in the 1940s and became a pioneer in Finnish colour photography. Her wide portfolio also includes magazines, advertisements and book covers. She is especially well known for her colourful portraits. She has also made documentary films, including one about the Summer Olympics in Helsinki in 1952.
She is also a pioneer of Finnish documentary film like her father Heikki Aho and her uncle Björn Soldan. Claire Aho is the granddaughter of author Juhani Aho (earlier Brofeldt) and Venny Soldan-Brofeldt (1863– 1945), one of the leading women painters of her time. Juhani Aho (1861–1921) was a journalist and the first Finnish professional writer, best known Finnish author in Scandinavia in his own time, who specialized in short stories called ”lastuja” (splinters).
Although Juhani Aho chose his subjects from Finnish folk life, his works were far from provincial. They reflected consciously modern literary movements, especially realism, which is seen in his first novel Rautatie (Railway) from the year 1884. Aho also translated to Finnish such writers as Kielland, Daudet, Lagerlöf, Hugo, and Maeterlinck.
The exhibition was very popular and had 45 000 visitors during the summer:
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