Victor Axel Westerholm (Finnish painter) 1860 - 1919
Victor Axel Westerholm was born in Finland on 4 January 1860, at Nagu island in Turku archipelago, the son of Vicor Westerholm, a ship's master, and Maria Westerholm (née Andersson). From 1869 to 1878 he studied at the Finnish Art Society's Drawing School in Turku, under Robert W. Ekmanand T. Waenerberg; and as a young man he studied under Eugen Dücker in Düsseldorf (1878-1880). Much later he studied under Jules Joseph Lefebvre at the Académie Julian in Paris (1888 and 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 in the archipelago of Åland, where he had his summer residence. In 1886 he invited several artists to his summer home, "Tomtebo", close to Lemström Canal in the municipality Lemland, Åland, thus beginning a famous artists' colony there. In the Ålandic village Önningeby is a museum located in memory of the colony. Westerholm died at Turku on 19 November 1919.
