Thursday, October 22, 2020

Artist of the Day, October 22, 2020: Ismo Hölttö, a Finnish documentary photographer (#1126)

Ismo Hölttö (1940) is a Finnish documentary photographer known for his monochrome portraits of Romani people and others living in the cities and countryside of Finland in the 1960s, a time of rapid societal change.

In 1955, Ismo Hölttö started as an apprentice goldsmith with the Helsinki firm of G. Buchert. He studied at the School of Applied Arts, whose vocational evening courses were held in the Ateneum museum building. From then until 1970 he worked at the firm of Westerback; he left after winning the State Photography Prize and set up an advertising company, Rykämä. The photography for which he is known was almost complete by this point: thereafter, his professional photography left little time for him to pursue his own photographic interests.[1]:i

Hölttö became interested in photography via two colleagues in the jewelry shop where he worked. He joined the Helsinki Camera Club and became friends with Mikko Savolainen [Wikidata], who had joined at about the same time and was able to give him technical advice. After initial attempts at landscape, Hölttö found his métier: portraiture. He pursued this vigorously, seldom photographing anything else.

In summer 1966 Hölttö and Savolainen visited Northern Karelia. They had had light-hearted intentions but found the trip unexpectedly worthwhile, and pursued the work during the coming years. In 1970 Savolainen arranged their work into the photobook Suomea tämäkin, published in time for Christmas. The two continued their partnership, bringing out the books Raportti Suomen mustalaisista (1972) and Vanhuksia (1981), on the Romani people and the elderly respectively. Hölttö's portraiture was complemented by Savolainen's concentration on communities.

Soon after becoming seriously interested in photography, Hölttö bought a Rolleiflex medium format twin lens reflex camera, whose design encouraged or even enforced a certain deliberation. From 1968, he added a 35 mm camera; but for the majority of his better-known portraits, his technique was somewhat similar to that of a studio photographer.

Such an extensive series of portraits was unprecedented for Finland, and Hölttö's work has sometimes been compared with August Sander's Menschen des 20. Jahrhunderts. But whereas Sander had followed a self-imposed assignment of photographing people having a list of occupations, Hölttö photographed as he wished.

Hölttö's photography in Northern Karelia concentrated on smallholders and others on the lower rungs of society, but his coverage in Helsinki was broader, showing middle-class people and even hippies.

Together with Savolainen and Matti Saanio, Hölttö led social documentary, then the dominant trend of Finnish photography, in the 1970s. Using a Rolleiflex, he photographed both Helsinki and the Finnish countryside: North Karelia, Savonia and Oulu. He shot the main body of his work during the ten years between 1962 and 1971 while working as a goldsmith. When he started documenting the Finnish people, he was only 22; when he ended this series he had turned 31.

The reproductions of Hölttö's negatives have changed considerably over time. In the 1960s he favoured high contrast, close cropping, and glossy paper. The early books used duotone offset printing, with little or no space separating the images. His large 1989 book Ihminen pääosassa (Englished in 1991 as People in the Lead Role) used tritone printing for reduced and subtler contrast, with more relaxed cropping.


© 2020. All content on this blog is protected by international copyright laws All images are copyrighted © by Ismo Hölttö or assignee. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, the use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained. All images used for illustrative purposes only


Self-portrait, Helsinki,Finland. 1965

1960, Man selling nalloons

1960, Portrait

1960, Two Boys and The Suomenlinna Ferry

1964, Oh, Boy

1965, Helsinki, Finland

1965, ÖH HÖM

1965, Poika ja veli. Helsinki

1966, Helsinki, Finland

1966, Kadunlakaisijat. Katajanokka, Helsinki

1966, Laestadian summer service, Oulu, Finland

1966, Nuoripari" (Ungt par). Salomonsgatan, Helsingfors

1966, Poika ja liina (Pojken med duk). Savolax

1966, Pudasjärvi, Finland

1967 Woman and a teenage girl in Hakaniemi

1967,  Helsinki,

1967, Batman, Myllypuro, Helsinki

1967, Boy wearing joke mask, May Day, Myllypuro, Helsinki

1967, Finnish tango

1967, Girl with pigtails, Kontula, Helsinki

1967, Iloinen perhe (A happy family), Lieksa

1967, Pojken vid väggrenen, Kesälax

1967, Railway Station, Helsinki

1967, Skibotn, Norway

Paris, April 1968

1968 Senate Square, Helsinki

1968, Elderly couple with a cat, Kiihtelysvaara

1968, Perunatorilla

1968, Young couple

1968, Young people’s student house

1969, Eno, Finland


2008, Boy on the roadside

Fiskard ad, Vogue, n.d.


 

 

No comments:

Post a Comment