Vilho Lampi

Lampi’s entire life was a balancing act between his calling as an artist and his duties on the family farm. He usually only had time to paint at night. He took his subjects from Liminka itself: self-portraits, portraits of family and neighbours, views from homesteads, and landscapes of the plains.

Vilho Lampi had only one solo exhibition in his lifetime, in Oulu in 1931, but his work was often included in the annual Helsinki exhibitions of the Artists’ Association of Finland. Lampi’s works were praised, but his output was not exhibited to a major extent until his memorial exhibitions in the 1950s in Oulu and Helsinki.

Vilho Lampi (1898–1936) of the town of Liminka was a painter of the plains. His career lasted only 14 years, but in that time he had room to experiment with several styles, from expressionism to Neue Sachlichkeit.