Painter Esko Siltavuori died on 11 May 2024 in Helsinki. He was 79 years old, born in Pietarsaari on June 9, 1944.
In the first year of the great upheavals of the 1960s, Siltavuori moved from Kuopio to Helsinki. The basics given by the vocational school for bakers and masons were included. The first refuge in the new environment was big sister Eeva. After that, Esko managed on his own.
Year 1961 belonged to the great years of construction. There was enough work for everyone who wanted it, and the construction work became Siltavuori University. The studies started with the so-called wall – hard work, where the nock men dictated the pace and the schedule. The construction workers’ union, to which he belonged as a free member until the end, took care of order and the wage level. Siltavuori’s purposeful action to remove toxic paints as a scourge of the profession also emerged from the association’s activities.
In his work, Siltavuori showed an amazing ability to understand and rationalize the basic nature of making: a simple, repetitive or tiring hand movement can be transformed into a smooth, economical and fast one. From this analytical feature developed ways of doing things that gave birth to a trademark. Everyone who got to work with Siltavuori had to work hard to keep up with the pace. And at that speed, quality was never compromised.
Painter’s in the profession, he had an innate ability to see what colors were in any painted surface. With amazing precision, he conjured up exactly the desired tone. This was combined with a very strong aesthetic vision, which over the years led to close friendships with many artists. It was easy to trust Siltavuori in terms of the overall quality.
In the years 1976–1984, Siltavuori also tried to raise the actions of the city of Helsinki to a level corresponding to his views and demands. The problems that Esko tackled then as a member of Skdl’s council group are still in front of the decision-makers. Kyläsaari’s threatening problems got a good solution then, and so did Harju’s youth facility.
The same analytical features were repeated in other blocks of life. At his dining table, you could be amazed at how skilled and inventive the cook and painter Siltavuori was. Esko also implemented the high quality and taste shown in his profession at the dining table and in the kitchen. The guests were also able to marvel at the selection of wines: “This is good wine”, was a repeated statement.
A picture of Esko would be very incomplete if his curiosity and well-readness were not mentioned. In his company, there were constant discussions about phenomena and books related to social change and interpretations of history.
“This is a fact”, was often the conclusion of the host. If someone wanted to argue against it, it was of course allowed and desired, but definitely within the framework of facts and an analytical approach.
Sam Siltavuori
Antero Koskinen
Nils Torvalds
Esko Siltavuori’s son and friends
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