ALEKSANDRA IONOWA
b. 1899, Lahti, Finland
d. 1980, Lahti, Finland
WORKS | BIOGRAPHY | EXHIBITIONS | PUBLICATIONS
SELECTED WORKS
BIOGRAPHY
Ionowa drawing a soul flower in Lauttasaari in 1964. Image: Ionowa-säätiö / Gallen-Kallelan museoBorn in Finland to wealthy Russian parents, Aleksandra Ionowa received a very good education in Helsinki. After leaving school, she opened a café in her home in Lahti. She later worked in a pharmacy in Orimattila.
On 14 July 1946 Aleksandra Ionowa had a life-changing mystical experience. In a trance-like state she felt at one with the sky and the sky within her. She took a notebook and pencil from her pocket, believing she was about to receive an important spiritual message. To her amazement, her hand began to draw lines and patterns, and finally she wrote her secret name in her notebook, beginning with an H. When she looked at the page later, she realized that the pen had not written the name. From then on, she signed her works with the letter H as a narrow, elongated, right-angled initial.
Without consciously doing anything, Ionowa began to draw, write aphorisms and improvise on the piano. She had become a tool of unknown transpersonal forces. Thus began her life of unceasing artistic expression, as if she had broken through to an inexhaustible source of creativity. Ionova created thousands of drawings, watercolors, pastels, gouaches, oil paintings, wrote inspired poems and received free improvisations on the piano.
Most of her work was done in a small red house on a hill by a creek in the village of Putula in Hämeenkoski parish. It was the house of her companion and soul sister, Selma Mäkelä, and in time it became Ionowa's second home.
Many of her drawings depict spiritual qualities and inner force fields that have arisen from direct contact with a person, an idea or a real event. Fantastic blossoms and plant-like formations are often in the foreground as images of a person's soul.
The depiction of faces was Ionowa's way of bringing the invisible person to light. They are meant to illustrate the quality of a human being. Christian symbolism also plays an important role in her work, especially through the face of the cosmic or mystical Christ. His depiction goes beyond the visionary image experienced and can become a symbolic representation of the transcendental potential dormant in human beings.
When the writer Elsa Heporauta (1883-1960) became aware of Ionowa's works, she introduced her to artistic circles. Ionowa gradually rose from local to national fame. Her first exhibition took place in 1964 in the parish hall of the Lauttasaari church in Helsinki, at the instigation of the priest Voitto Viro.
Aleksandra Ionowa is currently being rediscovered in exciting exhibitions. Many of her works are in the collection of the Ionowa Foundation, which is housed in the MALVA Museum of Fine Arts in Lahti.
SELECTED EXHBITIONS
2025 Aleksandra Ionowa – näkyjä henkimaailmasta ja rauhasta [Glimpses of the Spirit World and Peace] / Gallen Kallelan Museo, Espoo / February 2, - June 1, 2025
2022 Creative Spirits / The College of Psychic Studies / London / 11 Oct – 10 Dec 2022
1979 Savonlinna / 9 – 27 July 1979
1970 Colombia Banqueting House / Helsinki / March 1970
1964 Parish Hall of Lauttasaari Church / Helsinki / March 1964
PUBLICATIONS
Haila, Sirpa. "Aleksandra Ionowa - Mystikkotaiteilijan elämä" [Aleksandra Ionova - The Life of a Mystic Artist]. Ionowa-säätiö, 2006.
Kokkinen, Nina and Anne Pelin (eds.). Aleksandra Ionowa: Näkyjä henkimaailmasta ja rauhasta [Glimpses of the Spirit World and Peace]. Gallen-Kallelan Museo, 2025.
Kopponen, Väinö. "Ionowan kuvien symboliikka" [The Symbolism of Ionowa’s Pictures], Ultra, 2, 1983.
Kopponen, Väinö. ”Aleksandra Ionowa: Ionowan taiteen symboliikasta” [Aleksandra Ionowa: the symbolism in the Art of Ionowa], Ionowa-kokoelma: Lahden kaupunginmuseo. (Toimittanut Ulla Korhonen) Lahti: Ionowa-seura & Lahden kaupunki, 1979.
Kopponen, Väinö. Aleksandra Ionowa: Toisenlaisen todellisuuden kuvaaja. (Esitelmä Aleksandra Ionowan näyttelyssä Jyväskylän Kesässä 30.6.1980) [Aleksandra Ionowa: A portrait of a Different Reality. (Presentation at Aleksandra Ionowa's exhibition at Jyväskylä Arts Festival, June 30, 1980)] Turku: Karatas, 1980.
Viro, Voitto (ed.), Taivas oli minussa: Aleksandra Ionowan taidetta. [Heaven was in Me: The Art of Aleksandra Ionowa] Helsinki: WSOY, 1965.
