Knapas Rainer, Konttinen Riitta & Savojärvi Ulla, Elin Danielson-Gambogi, Helsinki, Otava, 1995
Finnish painter.
Elin Danielson was ten years old when her father, Karl Emil Danielson, committed suicide, despondent at the failure of the family farm. Her mother, Rosa Amalia Gestrin, encouraged her to continue her studies, with the financial help of her brother, who would be a longtime supporter of the artist. At fifteen, Danielson entered Helsinki’s Finnish Art Society Drawing School, where, in addition to drawing technique and painting, she studied painting on porcelain, training that proved invaluable in enabling her to support herself. In 1880 she obtained a teaching diploma, having taken classes with the painter Adolf von Becker, whose private school was attended by several young Finns, including Helene Schjerfbeck and Ellen Thesleff.
© 2017 American Federation of Arts, originally published in Women Artists in Paris, 1850-1900 by the American Federation of Arts in association with Yale University Press