ABSTRACT
A photograph taken on Kustaa Hiekka’s garden balcony in 1908 shows him almost fresh from his tour of the world. Kustaa Hiekka came from a modest farming background in a village in southwestern Finland. In 1879 Hiekka finally settled in Tampere, an important industrial city in central Finland. By 1915, when the photograph was taken, Hiekka had travelled widely, including a World Tour, and had absorbed impressions and ideas from diverse sources. In spite of the profusion of various styles found in the photograph, the furniture and objects display a predilection for good quality and craftsmanship. In the Hiekka Art Museum today, many of the World Tour souvenirs and later Chinese and Japanese acquisitions have been brought back from storage in the attic and are scattered in different rooms around the museum. In order to emphasise the souvenir aspect of Hiekka’s collecting practice, the museum staff organised a special Curiosity Cabinet exhibition in 2014.
