Girl on the Sand, Helene Schjerfbeck Postcard

Helene Schjerfbeck was a Finnish painter. A modernist painter, she is known for her realist works and self-portraits, and also for her landscapes and still lifes. Helene Schjerfbeck began as a realist painter but gradually moved towards a personal modern idiom. By the beginning of the twentieth century, her oeuvre had become ever more minimal, as this work Girl Playing in the Sand, executed in tempera, shows. Girl Playing in the Sand dates from the time when the artist was living in Hyvinkää (30 miles north of Helsinki), where she used her mother, neighbours and other locals as models, among them Martta Sahrman, who modelled for this work.