“The modern photographer reinvents the world, opens our eyes to see amazing things whose beauty we would otherwise have missed. His significance as an interpreter of our time continues to grow...”
- Critic Raoul af Hällström about Aho & Soldan, 1930
AHO & SOLDAN
Pioneering photographers and filmmakers
Heikki Aho (1895-1961) and Björn Soldan (1902-1953) are viewed as pioneers of Finnish documentary film. Through their legendary film production company Aho & Soldan, founded in Helsinki in 1925 and active until 1961, the Finnish documentary film tradition was born. Aho & Soldan produced more than 400 documentary films, being the largest such producer in the 1930´s in Finland.
Heikki Aho and Björn Soldan focused on documentary photography as well as artistic photography and created thousands of pictures. They were members of the modernistic ABISS-group inspired by the "New Objectivity". The group´s landmark exhibition at Salon Strindberg in May 1930 is regarded as a turning point in Finnish photography.
AHO & SOLDAN´s latest exhibition "Finland Calling" was held at the Finnish National Gallery Ateneum in the summer of 2011.
Heikki Aho´s daughter Claire Aho(b. 1925) started at Aho & Soldan in 1948 and became a filmmaker as well as a pioneer in colour photography in her own right - and thus continued the pioneering work by Aho & Soldan. Her latest exhibition "Age of Elegance" showing fashion-, advertisement- and cover photographs between 1950-1967 was held at the Kunsthalle Helsinki in the summer of 2011.
(Please click the photographs below to open respective page).
