Calla Flowers

Friendship and love have probably inspired Eronen more than any other theme.

He maintained many international contacts and he was a close friend of the famous Estonian sculptor Kalju Reitel (1921-2004) and his wife Eha. Eronen travelled regularly across the Baltic to see them. One such visit took place soon after Eronen had lost his mother. Eha presented him with a bouquet of Calla flowers, to be placed on his mother’s grave. The Reitels had met Eronen’s mother on the same occasion when Erkki encountered the Estonian couple for the first time. One of the flowers lasted for four months and Eronen thought to himself:

‘A gift from a good heart is closer to eternity than we are.’

The friendship and correspondence lasted for 40 years and the memory of the Calla flowers was so profound that Eronen never sold the sculpture he made of them, but kept it in his private collection as a souvenir of a deep friendship. Eronen described the creation process:

‘I wanted a beautiful composition. The shape just landed in my arms, already complete, and it became an obsession. The idea took on its own life’.

In this sculpture, Eronen used all his accumulated knowledge and skill. The piece is a distillation of Eronen’s artistry in terms of form, composition and artistic insight.

Hand-polished bronze.

About the artwork

Theme(s): Nature
Material(s): Bronze
Art form(s): Sculpture

Details

Exhibit Number: 166
Date: 1983
Height: 60 cm

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Related works of the art form: Sculpture