In the pearl: the collection of Rolando and Siv Pieraccini

quality art books and literature. Eurographica and The Lauttasaari Press, which he owned, specialized in publishing numbered and signed editions of classic works. Among them are a dozen Nobel laureates and classics like Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Norman Mailer and Doris Lessing. Graham Greene was particularly close to him. In the eighties, Pieraccin used to visit him in Antibes every first Saturday in July.

Pieraccini has also been a major publisher of graphic art. He used to travel with artists to Italy, where the best artists in the field relied on their work. Thanks to Pieraccin, the works of Finnish artists have ended up in the Hermitage of St. Petersburg (Veikko Vionoja), the Albertina Museum in Vienna and the Uffizi Gallery in Florence (Raimo Kanerva, Rafael Wardi, Vionoja).

Pieraccin has the nature of a Collector. In addition to graphics, he has collected letters, manuscripts and photographs from Sibelius and other Finnish cultural figures. In the year of Finland’s independence, he donated two large and nationally significant collections of letters and documents to the National Museum. The National Gallery received from him a collection of 20th century Italian graphics, drawings and watercolors, which is reportedly the largest in the world of its kind outside of Italy.

In 2009, Rolando Pieraccin was awarded the Finnish Lion Commander’s Badge for his long-term activities in favor of Finnish visual arts and culture.