Ahti Lavonen was born in 1928.

The artist Ahti Lavonen was one of the pioneers of Finnish informalism. As an opinionated writer, he was also a prominent and famous figure in the turbulent art field of Finland in the 1960's.

Central to Lavonen's career as an artist was constant exploration and renewal. He gave up representativeness early on in his art and moved on to abstract expression. He divided his own production into different periods, centred around different colours.

According to Lavonen, the choice of colours in his art was based on what stage of inner life he was going through at that given time. His black period began in the early 1960's with the spiritual awakening that Lavonen experienced, as a result of w...