Victor Westerholm
Victor Axel Westerholm was a Finnish landscape painter.Biography
Victor Axel Westerholm was born at Nagu island in Turku archipelago of Finland. He was the son of Viktor Westerholm, a ship's master, and Maria Westerholm. From 1869 to 1878 he studied at the Finnish Art Society's Drawing School in Turku, under Robert Wilhelm Ekman and Thorsten Waenerberg ; and as a young man he studied under Eugen Dücker in Düsseldorf from
1878-1880.
Much later he studied under Jules Joseph Lefebvre at the Académie Julian in Paris from 1888-1890.
In 1888 he became a teacher at the school of the Society of Art in Turku, and in 1891 became the director of the Turku art museum.
He often painted winter landscapes and sunsets at his summer home, "Tomtebo", at the village of Önningeby in the Municipality of Jomala on the Åland Islands in the Baltic Sea. In 1886, he invited several artists to Tomtebo thus beginning the Önningeby artists colony. Visiting artists who spent time in Önningeby include J.A.G. Acke, Hanna Rönnberg, Elin Danielson-Gambogi, Edvard Westman and Elias Muukka. Since 1992 Önningeby-museet in Önningeby has exhibited a permanent exhibition of works by the Önningeby artists’ colony.
Westerholm was an instructor at Turku drawing school in 1887–1898 and 1904–1917. In 1891, he was elected as the curator of the newly formed Art Association in Turku.Personal life
In 1885, he married Hilma Alander. Westerholm lived in Turku where he died during 1919.Gallery
