Visual artist Erik Creutziger receives 2022 Maire Gullichsen Prize

The Prize Committee gives the following reasons for its choice of recipient:
“Erik Creutziger’s paintings are irresistible, because they do not involve a battle with the viewer. Creutziger neither provokes viewers nor teaches us anything, rather, these paintings seem to have come about of themselves. This absence of self has honourable traditions in the history of painting. Wassily Kandinsky called it “inner necessity”. Before him, the concept was used by Richard Wagner and Leo Tolstoy, and, after him, by Arnold Schönberg, Heinrich Wölfflin, Oswald Spengler and others. After Modernism, the term “inner necessity” has for inexplicable reasons been thrown onto the scrap heap, from where the Maire Gullichsen Prize Committee has disinterred it and held it up as a main criterion for their selections.
“In Creutziger’s paintings inner necessity is linked to honouring the conditions of painterliness. He dissolves the materiality of the form in favour of colourism, but in his works this does not lead to an abstraction of their subject matter, but to landscape or space-like imagery. Figures, animals and people merge into the surrounding space, bringing to mind Chinese ink paintings. Outlines are dissolved and with the aid of colour everything becomes one. In balancing figures and colour, Creutziger demonstrates a virtuosity that has become rare in contemporary art.”
The Maire Gullichsen Prize is primarily awarded to a young art professional every other year or so. The prize cannot be applied for, instead, a multidisciplinary jury chooses the prizewinner on the basis of artistic expression, exhibition and studio visits, and conversations with the artist.
Erik Creutziger says the atmosphere of his paintings is usually based on his own experiences. “For my paintings I use glimpses stored in memory of events that have occurred, for example, on trips or perhaps on long walks. I am fascinated by combining the seen and experienced with the world of fantasy,” he says. Creutziger will next take part in the Reality and Imagination group exhibition at the Museum of New Art in Pärnu, Estonia, in April 2023.
Erik Creutziger (1982) is a visual artist from Helsinki, who graduated from the Free Art School, Helsinki, in 2007 and from the Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki, in 2013. He is a member of the Finnish Painters’ Union, Kuvasto, and Helsinki Artists’ Association. His works are, for instance, in the collections of HAM Helsinki Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma (The Seppo Fränti Collection), EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art, and Pro Artibus Foundation. Creutziger was awarded the Héléne and Walter Grönqvist Stiftelse prize in 2020, William Thuring main prize in 2019, and the Stina Krook Foundation Award in 2015.
Maire Gullichsen's 80th Anniversary Fund was founded in 1988, to commemorate the birthday of the prominent patron of the arts Maire Gullichsen (1907–1990), and is administered by the Alvar Aalto Foundation. In 2022, the members of the Maire Gullichsen Prize Committee were: Leif Jakobsson (Chair), Johanna Gullichsen, Kirsi Gullichsen, Harry Alanen, Leena Kuumola and Silja Rantanen.
The prize has previously been awarded to: Pekka Sassi (2020); Inka Kivalo (2018); Vesa-Pekka Rannikko (2007); Sandra Kantanen (2005); Nathalie Lahdenmäki (2002); Mari Rantanen (1997); Marjatta Oja (1993); Tor Arne (1991); and Pekka Pitkänen (1987).
Contacts
Further information:
Chair of Prize Committee Leif Jakobsson
jakobsson.leifverner@gmail.com
+358 440 304 099
Secretary of Prize Committee Mari Forsberg
mari.forsberg@alvaraalto.fi
+358 45 679 0920
Artist Erik Creutziger
erik.creutziger@gmail.com
+358 40 702 4048
Interview requests and media images:
Communications Manager Mirkka Vidgrén, Alvar Aalto Foundation
mirkka.vidgren@alvaraalto.fi
+358 40 168 5142
Images
About Alvar Aalto -säätiö
Alvar Aalto -säätiö toimii paremman arkiympäristön ja muotoilukulttuurin hyväksi lähtökohtanaan Alvar Aallon ja hänen elämäntyönsä humanistiset ja ekologiset arvot. Alvar Aalto -museo, säätiön osana, pitää yllä ja kartuttaa kokoelmiaan ja arkistojaan sekä tuottaa monipuolisia yleisön- ja asiantuntijapalveluita.
Subscribe to releases from Alvar Aalto -säätiö
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Alvar Aalto -säätiö by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Alvar Aalto -säätiö
The Alvar Aalto Museum’s main summer exhibition highlights Artek’s invisible masters9.4.2025 12:52:44 EEST | Press release
The exhibition showcases the band of gifted designers who worked at Artek over a period of more than 60 years. It puts the spotlight on key designers and lesser-known creators on whose drawing boards unforgettable classics of Artek and Finnish design were born.
Alvar Aalto -museon kesän päänäyttely nostaa esiin Artekin näkymättömät mestarit9.4.2025 12:30:21 EEST | Tiedote
Näyttely esittelee taitavan suunnittelijajoukon työtä ja tuotantoa yli 60 vuoden ajalta. Esiin nousee keskeisiä suunnittelijoita ja vähemmän tunnettuja tekijöitä, joiden työpöydältä on syntynyt Artekin ja suomalaisen muotoilun ikimuistoisia klassikoita.
Maire Gullichsen-priset 2024 till bildkonstnären Emilia Tanner26.3.2025 14:46:20 EET | Tiedote
Maire Gullichsen-priset för år 2024 har tilldelats bildkonstnären Emilia Tanner, som är känd för sitt ovanligt skickliga och subtila arbete. Maire Gullichsen-priset delas nu ut för elfte gången. Konstprisets summa uppgår till 10 000 euro.
Kuvataiteilija Emilia Tannerille Maire Gullichsenin palkinto 202426.3.2025 12:32:30 EET | Tiedote
Vuoden 2024 Maire Gullichsenin palkinto on myönnetty kuvataiteilija Emilia Tannerille, joka tunnetaan erityisen taidokkaasta ja hienovaraisesta työskentelystään. Nyt yhdennentoista kerran jaettavan Maire Gullichsenin palkinnon arvo on 10 000 euroa.
10th International Alvar Aalto Design Seminar – Checkpoint: themes and first speakers listed13.3.2025 16:12:07 EET | Press release
Checkpoint! How is the design heritage renewing itself? How will authentic and human design, crafts and cohabitation flourish in the age of AI?
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom