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Erkki Eronen – the Finnish Sculptor

The Finnish sculptor Erkki Eronen, (1926, Pälkjärvi – 2018, Järvenpää) began his career after graduating from the Finnish Art Academy in 1951. He also studied painting at the Free Art School under the important Finnish painters Sam Vanni and Unto Pusa, but sculpture was his true calling.

Already as a student, Eronen served as assistant to the renowned Finnish sculptor Wäinö Aaltonen, working, for instance, on the monuments to Presidents Ståhlberg’s and Svinhufvud that stand before the Finnish Parliament in Helsinki.

Erkki Eronen sculpting in Carrara marble ‘The beauty of Being Two’
Erkki Eronen sculpting in Carrara marble ‘The beauty of Being Two’
Photo © Noora Eronen

The beginning of Erkki Eronen’s career

Eronen’s career took off after he took part in a national competition to design a monument commemorating the composer Jean Sibelius, who had died in 1957. The winning design by Eila Hiltunen was an abstract piece made of hollow steel pipes. However, the figurative statue by Erkki Eronen was much more to the liking of the composer’s family. Together with the Sibelius Society, they therefore decided to commission a second monument. Eronen’s bronze statue of Sibelius was unveiled in the composer’s home town of Järvenpää in 1964.

Following this success, Erkki Eronen went on to receive numerous commissions for monuments, memorials, sculptures and portraits during a career that would last for over 65 years.


Despite his extensive and versatile output, Eronen remained rather unknown to the general public throughout his life. He mainly worked outside art establishment, on his own terms. His sculptures probe the essence of humanity through themes of Finnish history, culture and nature. In each sculpture, there is also a deep connection, independently from the subject or the theme, to his own life story and internal world.

His central themes are friendship, love and trust. Faith is a key notion, not just in the works that are explicitly religious, but across Eronen’s entire oeuvre. Sculpture by sculpture, he searched for ways in which kindness could be expressed in physical form.

Photo © Noora Eronen