Restored three-metre Germund Paaer landscape returns to Hyhky School

The restored three-metre landscape has been returned to Hyhky School in Tampere after conservation.

The three-metre-wide work was first displayed in Pispala from 1903 to 1942, when it was used in the area’s school setting as a classroom backdrop. Later it also served as theatrical scenery, and it decorated classrooms for decades before being moved to Hyhky about 80 years ago, where it hung for roughly the same period until it was taken in for restoration.

In 2020, the painting was transferred to the city’s Collections Centre for conservation. According to the City of Tampere, restorers fitted a new frame, patched tears, straightened the canvas and cleaned the painted surface before returning it to the school for display.

Local tradition holds that Paaer painted the scene outdoors on Saunasaari in Pyhäjärvi, stretching the large canvas between pine trunks. The scene features untouched forest, a rocky viewpoint over a sheltered bay and a calm expanse of lake reflecting drifting clouds. Tampere’s collection contains only a few comparable large regional landscapes from the early 1900s.

Paaer, born in Parkano, worked in Tampere in the 1890s before settling in Helsinki. He later became chief designer for Kalevala Jewellery, produced commercial illustrations and art‑cast designs at Taidetakomo Koru and Taito Oy, and taught graphic art at the School of Applied Arts (now Aalto University).