K-G Roos - Mafia, Marimekko, Mannerheim

K-G Roos:   Sicily (1959)

Press photos

“I want to portray our time in wide-ranging epic form: its phenomena, human destinies and world events.”

The journalist and documentary photographer Karl-Gustav Roos’ (1937–1976) highly individual pictures are treasures of the museum archive, most of which are now being seen for the first time in an exhibition. Roos was an uncompromising idealist, whose production combines a modern form language with a socially aware attitude rooted in humanity. He was a second-generation photographer, whose career began when he was still a teenager. His father, Rafael Roos, owned the reputable Foto Roos studio.

Roos’ career as a photojournalist and documentary photographer was short, but exceptional. He was conscious of his social responsibility as a photographer and thought about the potential for making an impact through pictures as early as the 1950s, long before social awareness became the mainstream in photography at the start of the 1970s. He photographed people’s everyday lives in the streets of Helsinki and Sicily. In Sicily in 1959, Roos’ photographic narrative crystallized into decisive moments, in which the composition of the picture became a part of psychologically acute observation of the moment. Roos also took sensitive portraits of the Marimekko clothes designed by Vuokko Nurmesniemi set in the heart of nature.

In the 1950s, Roos photographed the material for two large photography books. He was one of the first photographers in Finland to adopt the book as his own chosen channel of expression. The book shot in Sicily was never published, although its original printing plan can be seen in the exhibition. Already before then, he had managed to photograph the most exciting city book of the post-war period (Ihmisten Helsinki [the human face of Helsinki], 1961) in his home district in Helsinki.

This exhibition based on the Museum’s own research project is showing Roos’ documentary in the original prints, accompanied by new prints of his fashion photographs. The pictures can be seen in their original published contexts, too, in the pages of magazines and newspapers. The museum is also showing the short films that Roos shot of Helsinki and the Triennale di Milano.

The exhibition is accompanied by the publication of a book, K-G Roos 1937–1976 (in Finnish, ed. Maria Faarinen, Finnish Museum of Photography 2012).

On the Museum’s Kännykkäguide (mobile phone guide) visitors can hear K-G Roos’ brother Matts Roos, his childhood friend, author Jörn Donner, designer Vuokko Nurmesniemi, and Curator, Collections Maria Faarinen, who has researched Roos’ production, talk (in Finnish) about Roos and his work.

Curator, Collections Maria Faarinen will introduce the exhibition at 18:00 on 14.3. Museum entrance fee.

Photographer, Helsingin Sanomat, Sami Kero will tell about press photography and introduce the exhibition (in Finnish) at 18:00 on 11.4. Museum entrance fee.