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Pentti Sammallahti (b. 1950, Helsinki)

Pentti Sammallahti (b. 1950, Helsinki)
Pécs, Hungary (two horses), 1979
Gelatin silver print
Image 6 7/8 x 6 7/8 in. (17.5 x 17.5 cm)
Paper 10 x 8 in. (25.4 x 20.3 cm)

Pentti Sammallahti (b. 1950, Helsinki)

Pentti Sammallahti (b. 1950, Helsinki)
Slovenia (cat on chair), 2006
Gelatin silver print
Image 6 1/4 x 6 1/4 in. (15.9 x 15.9 cm)
Titled and dated in pencil on verso

Cracow, Poland (head), 2005, Gelatin silver print

Cracow, Poland (head), 2005

Gelatin silver print

7 3/4 x 6 5/8 in. (19.7 x 16.8 cm)

Signed and dated in pencil on recto

Przevorsk, Poland, 2005, Gelatin silver print

Przevorsk, Poland, 2005

Gelatin silver print

Signed and dated in pencil on recto

Image: 6 3/8 x 6 5/8 in. (16.2 x 16.8 cm)
Paper: 10 x 8 in. (25.4 x 20.3 cm)

 

Image: 4 3/4 x 4 7/8 in. (12.1 x 12.4 cm)
Paper: 7 7/8 x 5 7/8 in. (20 x 14.9 cm)

Petrohan, Bulgaria, 2003

Petrohan, Bulgaria, 2003
Gelatin silver print
5 13/16 x 8 7/8 in. (14.8 x 21.4 cm)

Signed and dated in pencil on recto
 

Cracow, Poland (triptych), 1974

Cracow, Poland (triptych), 1974
Gelatin silver print
Image: 3 1/8 x 6 3/8 in. (7.9 x 16.2 cm)

Paper: 5 x 8 in. (12.7 x 20.3 cm)

Signed and dated in pencil on recto
 

Cracow, Poland (painting), 1981

Cracow, Poland (painting), 1981
Gelatin silver print
Image: 4 1/2 x 6 1/8 in. (11.4 x 15.4 cm)

Paper: 5 7/8 x 7 7/8 in. (14.9 x 20.0 cm)

Signed and dated in pencil on recto

Odessa, Ukraine, 2004, Gelatin silver print

Odessa, Ukraine, 2004

Gelatin silver print

Image: 6 1/8 x 4 9/16 in. (15.6 x 11.6 cm)
Paper: 8 x 6 in. (20.3 x 15.2 cm)

Signed and dated in pencil on recto

Odessa, Ukraine, 2004, Gelatin silver print

Odessa, Ukraine, 2004

Gelatin silver print

Image: 4 1/2 x 4 7/8 in. (11.4 x 12.4 cm)
Paper: 6 x 8 in. (15.2 x 20.3 cm)

Signed and dated in pencil on recto

Lviv, Ukraine, 2007, Gelatin silver print

Lviv, Ukraine, 2007

Gelatin silver print

Signed and dated in pencil on recto

Image: 4 9/16 x 6 1/4 in. (11.6 x 15.9 cm)
Paper: 6 x 8 in. (15.2 x 20.3 cm)

 

Image: 5 3/4 x 7 13/16 in. (14.6 x 19.8 cm)
Paper: 8 x 10 in. (20.3 x 25.4 cm)

Lviv, Ukraine, 2007

Lviv, Ukraine, 2007
Gelatin silver print

Image: 4 1/4 x 5 3/4 in. (10.8 x 14.6 cm)
Paper: 6 x 8 in. (15.2 x 20.3 cm)

Signed and dated in pencil on recto

Vörumma, Estonia, 2004

Vörumma, Estonia, 2004
Gelatin silver print

Image: 6 1/8 x 8 3/8 in. (15.6 x 21.3 cm)
Paper: 7 7/8 x 9 7/8 in. (20 x 25.1 cm)

Signed and dated in pencil on recto

Odessa, Ukraine, 2004, Gelatin silver print

Odessa, Ukraine, 2004

Gelatin silver print

Image: 4 1/4 x 6 3/8 in. (10.8 x 16.2 cm)
Paper: 6 x 8 in. (15.2 x 20.3 cm)

Signed and dated in pencil on recto

Titled and dated in pencil on verso

negreni, romania (man with hat)

Pentti Sammallahti (b. 1950, Helsinki)
Negreni, Romania (man with hat), 1985
Gelatin silver print
Paper 8 x 10 in. (20.3 x 25.4 cm)

Negreni, Romania, 1985, Gelatin silver print

Negreni, Romania, 1985

Gelatin silver print

Image: 4 1/2 x 10 1/4 in. (11.4 x 26.0 cm)
Paper: 7 7/8 x 11 7/8 in. (20 x 30.2 cm)

Signed and dated in pencil on recto

Titled and dated in pencil on verso

Negreni, Romania, 1985, Gelatin silver print

Negreni, Romania, 1985

Gelatin silver print

Image: 4 1/16 x 10 5/16 in. (10.3 x 26.2 cm)
Paper: 8 x 12 in. (20.3 x 30.5 cm)

Signed and dated in pencil on recto

Vraçanska Planina, Bulgaria, 2003

Vraçanska Planina, Bulgaria, 2003
Gelatin silver print

Signed and dated in pencil on recto

Image: 6 5/8 x 14 in. (16.8 x 35.6 cm)
Paper: 9 1/2 x 16 in. (24.1 x 40.6 cm)

 

Archival pigment print

Image: 15 3/8 x 32 3/4 in. (39.1 x 83.2 cm)
Paper: 16 7/8 x 36 1/8 in. (42.9 x 91.8 cm)

 

Kazanlak, Bulgaria, 2003, Gelatin silver print

Kazanlak, Bulgaria, 2003

Gelatin silver print

Signed and dated in pencil on recto

Image: 6 1/8 x 8 1/4 in. (15.6 x 21 cm)
Paper: 8 x 10 in. (20.3 x 25.4 cm)

 

Image: 7 x 9 1/4 in. (17.8 x 23.5 cm)
Paper: 9 1/2 x 11 1/2 in. (24.1 x 29.2 cm)

Mestia, Georgia (pig in snow), 2014, Gelatin silver print

Mestia, Georgia (pig in snow), 2014

Gelatin silver print

Image: 6 3/4 x 6 3/8 in. (17.1 x 16.2 cm)
Paper: 8 x 10 in. (20.3 x 25.4 cm)

Signed and dated in pencil on recto

Titled and dated in pencil on verso

Sarospatak, Hungary, 1979, Gelatin silver print

Sarospatak, Hungary, 1979

Gelatin silver print

Image: 4 5/16 x 6 1/8 in. (11.0 x 15.6 cm)
Paper: 6 x 7 3/4 in. (15.2 x 19.7 cm)

Signed and dated in pencil on recto

Pécs, Hungary (man with hat), 1980

Pécs, Hungary (man with hat), 1980
Gelatin silver print

Signed and dated in pencil on recto

Pécs, Hungary, 1980 Gelatin silver print

Pécs, Hungary, 1980
Gelatin silver print

Image: 4 5/8 x 5 3/8 in. (11.8 x 13.7 cm)
Paper: 5 7/8 x 7 3/4 in. (14.9 x 19.7 cm)

Signed and dated in pencil on recto

Pécs, Hungary (sleeping man), 1980, Gelatin silver print

Pécs, Hungary (sleeping man), 1980

Gelatin silver print

Image: 5 3/8 x 6 11/16 in. (13.7 x 17 cm)
Paper: 8 x 10 in. (20.3 x 25.4 cm)

Signed and dated in pencil on recto

violin player, hungary

Pentti Sammallahti (b. 1950, Helsinki)
Negreni, Romania (violin player), 1985
Gelatin silver print
8 x 10 in. (20.3 x 25.4 cm)

Erdöbenye, Hungary, 1979, Gelatin silver print

Erdöbenye, Hungary, 1979

Gelatin silver print

Image: 5 7/16 x 7 13/16 in. (13.8 x 19.8 cm)
Paper: 8 x 10 in. (25.4 x 20.3 cm)

Signed and dated in pencil on recto

Budapest, Hungary, 1980, Gelatin silver print

Budapest, Hungary, 1980

Gelatin silver print

Image: 5 7/8 x 4 1/2 in. (14.9 x 11.4 cm)
Paper: 8 x 6 in. (20.3 x 15.2 cm)

Signed and dated in pencil on recto

Miskolc, Hungary (duck and car), 1979

Miskolc, Hungary (duck and car), 1979
Gelatin silver print

Toned gelatin silver print 

Signed and dated in pencil on recto 

cat in street

Pentti Sammallahti (b. 1950, Helsinki)
Dubrovnik, Croatia (cat in street), 2004
Gelatin silver print
10 x 8 in. (25.4 x 20.3 cm)

Biography

Pentti Sammallahti was born in 1950 in Helsinki, Finland. Growing up, he was surrounded by the works of his grandmother, Hildur Larsson (1882-1952), a Swedish-born photographer, who worked for the Helsinki newspaper Kaiku in the early 1900s. After visiting the exhibition The Family of Man at the Helsinki Art Hall (1961) Sammallahti made his first photographs at age eleven. Pentti joined the Helsinki Camera Club in 1964. His first solo exhibition was in 1971.

Sammallahti has traveled widely as a photographer, from his native Scandinavia, across the Soviet Republics through Siberia, to Japan, India, Nepal, Morocco, Turkey, across Europe and Great Britain, and even to South Africa.  Sammallahti’s travels and interest in fine printing and lithography has led him to publish numerous portfolios of which the largest and most well-known is The Russian Way (1996).  As a benchmark figure in contemporary Finnish photography, his work has a supernatural sense of a moment in time with the sensitivity and beauty of the world displayed through its animalistic existence. His particular use of dogs, which reflects the human existential experience, shows the shared nature of the earth with gentle humor and a fleeting attitude. Sammallahti describes himself as a wanderer who likes the nature of the great north, the silence, the cold, and the sea. He likes the people and the animals of far-off places and he records the relationships between them and their environment. 

As a master craftsman, he meticulously tones his prints, which come in various formats, from 4 by 5 inches in image size to panoramas of 6 by 14 inches. In 2010 for his retrospective exhibition in Helsinki, he created large format pigment prints, about 9 by 21 inches and 15 by 35.5 inches in size. As a passionate seeker of the perfect mechanical printing method, his own innovative printing techniques and reintroduction of the portfolio form have re-awakened broader interest in published photographic art. Influenced by the idea of ‘artist books’ – individual works in which the artist is responsible for the whole: photography, the making of prints, layout, design, and typography, reproduction, and often the actual printing process either with the offset or the gravure method. Since 1979, Pentti Sammallahti has published thirteen books and portfolios and has received awards such as the Samuli Paulaharju Prize of the Finnish Literature Society, State Prizes for Photography, Uusimaa Province Art Prize, Daniel Nyblin Prize, and the Finnish Critics Association Annual.

From 1974 to 1991 Sammallahti taught at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki, retiring when he received a 15-year grant from the Finnish government, an unusually long endowment, which is no longer awarded. Both as a photographer and a teacher, he has had an enormous influence on a whole generation of documentary photographers in Scandinavia.

Sammallahti had a solo exhibition at Paris' Mois de la Photographie in 1996 and another in 1998 at Houston Fotofest, Texas.  In 2001 the Helsinki University of Art and Design awarded Pentti Sammallahti the title of Honorary Doctorate in Art.  In 2004, the famous French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson ranked Sammallahti among his 100 favorite photographers for his Foundation's inaugural exhibition in Paris. The French Photo Poche book series published his book edited by Robert Delpire in 2005, and the same year, Sammallahti had a personal exhibition at the International Photography Festival in Arles. His second exhibition at Recontres d'Arles was a major retrospective in 2012 accompanied by the release of the first retrospective monograph Here Far Away, published in six languages (German, French, English, Italian, Spanish, and Finnish). 

Among museum collections, Sammallahti’s work can be found at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Victoria & Albert Museum, London, England; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, USA; Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, France; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, Germany; Moderna Museet / Fotografiska Museet, Stockholm, Sweden; and The Finnish State Collections and the Photographic Museum of Finland.

Selected solo exhibitions

2022
Pentti Sammallahti: Here Far Away, Baden-La Gacilly, Baden, Austria

2021
Pentti Sammallahti and the Sea, Nailya Alexander Gallery, New York
City of Hidden Lives, Nailya Alexander Gallery, New York
 

2020
Festival of Lights, Nailya Alexander Gallery, November - December 2020
Texture, Nailya Alexander Gallery, January-December 2020
Pentti Sammallahti: Miniatures, Musée de la Photographie Charles Nègre - Nice, France
Distant Land: Pentti Sammallahti, Fotografiska, Stockholm, Sweden
Beyond The Wind - Pentti Sammallahti, Gallery K.O.N.G., Seoul, South Korea

2019
Pentti Sammallahti's Birds, Nailya Alexander Gallery, New York, NY, USA
Color of Light: Fifteen Years of Nailya Alexander Gallery, New York

2017
Warm Regards, Pentti Sammallahti, photo-eye Gallery, Santa Fe, NM, USA

2016
When frost was spectre-grey, The Photographers' Gallery, London, England

2012
Here Far Away, Camera Obscura Gallery, Paris, France
Here Far Away, photo-eye Gallery, Santa Fe, NM, USA
Pentti Sammallahti, Retrospective, Recontres d'Arles, France

2010
Retrospective at the Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki, Finland
Pentti Sammallahti: Images rares ou recentes, Box Galerie, Brussels, Belgium

2007
Pentti Sammallahti, Candace Dwan Gallery, New York, NY, USA

2005
Pentti Sammallahti, solo exhibition at Arles International Photography Festival, France

2004
Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation's opening exhibition, Paris, France

1998
Pennti Sammallahti, Houston FotoFest, Houston, TX, USA

1996
Solo exhibition, Mois de la Photographie, Paris France

1976
Uusia sarjoja exhibition at the Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki, Finland

1974
Mullasta taivaalle exhibition at the Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki, Finland