Kyllikki Salmenhaara graduated as a ceramist from the Central School of Arts and Crafts in Helsinki in 1943, during the Second World War, and part of her student years were spent in women’s auxiliary defence duties. After her studies, Salmenhaara worked from 1943 to 1946 at the Kauklahti glassworks near Helsinki, where she mostly decorated glass by painting but also had the opportunity to make a few unique pieces. In 1946 she received a trainee position in the studio of the renowned Danish ceramic designer Nathalie Krebs; in early 1947 she first worked as an assistant to Sakari Vapaavuori and later in the year she was employed by the Arabia factory. Salmenhaara first worked at the applied art department, but in 1950 she became a designer at the factory’s art department. Salmenhaara’s career at Arabia continued until 1961.
In her work as a designer, Kyllikki Salmenhaara developed various kinds of paste and glazes and became thoroughly familiar with the chemistry of ceramics. She was also skilled at turning pieces on the wheel. Salmenhaara felt that the ceramist’s material, clay, was the starting point for all artistic work in this area. The coarseness of the clay, in turn, defined the form of the object. She worked to achieve increasingly simpler and purer forms.
In 1956, Salmenhaara was in the United States on an Asla-Fulbright grant to study American ceramic design and its teaching. Abstract expressionism was a new phenomenon in American ceramics at the time and it had a liberating effect on Salmenhaara’s work; she left the surface of her pieces unfinished and used natural colours. Salmenhaara presented the results of her trip in a solo exhibition in 1957. Until then, she had explicitly wanted to make art ceramics, but this showing featured almost uniquely utility items, such as jugs, tankards, jars and candlesticks.
Because of an accident, Salmenhaara could no longer work with the potter’s wheel, and in the early 1960s she had to give up her own artistic and design work almost completely. She began a new career in teaching, being invited to Taiwan to renew ceramic training in the country, teach and serve as a consultant to the ceramic industry. Salmenhaara worked in Taiwan from 1961 to 1963. After returning to Finland, she began work as the director and lecturer of the Department of Ceramic Design in the Institute of Industrial Arts (University of Art and Design Helsinki since 1973). From 1973 to 1981 she was a senior faculty member of the department. In her teaching, Salmenhaara underlined a knowledge of material and a command of technique as the basis of all creative work. She developed studies in materials and trained her students to be auxiliary instructors and teachers who began to specialize in their own fields. Her teaching focused on products in small series and she encouraged her students to establish their own ceramic studios after graduating. Salmenhaara was also the author of the first textbook in ceramics written in the Finnish language. She was also one of Finland’s first artist professors (1970-1973). Kyllikki Salmenhaara lectured in Japan, the United States and Canada, among other countries, from the late 1950s to the 1970s.
Salmenhaara participated in several exhibitions of applied art and design and she received prizes at international ceramics competitions and at the Milan triennials. She was awarded the Pro Finlandia medal in 1961 and the Finnish State Design Prize in 1974.
Auli Suortti-Vuorio
Bibliography:
Kyllikki Salmenhaara 1915-1981. Taideteollisuusmuseon julkaisu no 20. Helsinki 1986.
Salmenhaara, Kyllikki, Keramiikka. Massat, lasitukset, työtavat. 2. uusittu p. Helsinki 1983.
Kalha, Harri (ed.), Ruukuntekijästä multimediataiteilijaan. Taideteollinen korkeakoulu. Jyväskylä 1996.
Kumela, Marjut, Paatero, Kristiina ja Rissanen, Kaarina, Arabia. Helsinki 1987.
Leppänen, Helena (ed.), Ruukun runoutta ja materiaalin mystiikkaa. Sata vuotta keramiikkataiteen opetusta ja tutkimusta. Taideteollinen korkeakoulu. Helsinki 2003.
