Victor Westerholm:
Winter Scene, Åland

Victor Westerholm (1860–1919) founded an artists’ colony in Önningeby, in the Åland Islands, in 1886. Most of the artists in the colony painted there in the summer, but Westerholm also spent one winter in Önningeby. The artist’s oeuvre includes several paintings depicting Åland in winter, including this one from 1891. The subject is typical of Westerholm, who had been painting Nordic winter scenes according to the French plein air tradition since the mid-1880s.