Maija Isola
| Maija Isola | |
|---|---|
At work, sitting cross-legged, paintbrush and paintpot in hand
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| Born |
15 March 1927 Arolammi, Riihimäki, Finland |
| Died | 3 March 2001 (aged 73) Helsinki |
| Nationality | Finnish |
| Occupation | Textile designer |
| Known for | Unikko and other Marimekko patterns |
| Spouse(s) | Georg Leander Jaakko Somersalo Jorma Tissari |
Maija Isola (15 March 1927 – 3 March 2001) was a leading Finnish designer of printed textiles, creating over 500 patterns including Unikko ("Poppy"). Her bold colourful designs made Marimekko famous in the 1960s. She also had a career as a visual artist.
Isola exhibited across Europe including in the World Exhibition Brussels and the Milan Triennale, and in the USA. Retrospectives of her work have been held at the Design Museum in Helsinki, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the Design Museum, Copenhagen, the Slovene Ethnographic Museum, Ljubljana, and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Her prints continue to sell at Marimekko.
She lived and worked most of her life in Finland, but spent some years working in France, Algeria and the United States. She was married three times. Her daughter Kristina Isola in turn became a Marimekko designer, for a time collaborating with Maija. Her granddaughter Emma too designs for the company.
Isola was the youngest of three daughters of Mauno and Toini Isola. Mauno was a farmer who wrote song lyrics including a popular Finnish Christmas carol. They lived on the family farm and helped out with agricultural work in the summer. The girls made paper dolls with elegant dresses for their homemade paper dollshouse with elaborately decorated interiors.
Isola studied painting at the Helsinki Central School of Industrial Arts. In 1945, as the Second World War (with fighting between Finland and its neighbour, Russia) came to an end, her life radically changed: her father died, and she became pregnant. On 22 July 1945 she married the commercial artist Georg Leander: their daughter Kristina was born in January 1946.
In 1948, she went to Oslo, visiting the Van Gogh exhibition and seeing the Edvard Munch paintings there. She was inspired by a display of classical era pots at the Oslo Museum of Craft and Design to create her Amfora ("Amphora") print. The marriage with Leander did not last long, and by 1949 she was travelling Europe with the painter Jaakko ("Jaska") Somersalo, who became her second husband. He taught her the technique of woodcut printing and inspired her to paint. They divorced in 1955.
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Wikipedia