page_title: Walter Runeberg
section_title: Biography
hierarchical_section_title: Walter Runeberg / Biography
caption_attribution_description: English: Runeberg family grave with sculpture by Walter Runeberg Suomi: Walter Runebergin veistos Runebergin perhehaudalla
context_page_description: Walter Magnus Runeberg was a Finnish neo-classical sculptor.
context_section_description: Runeberg was born in Porvoo as the eldest son of Finnish national poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg and his wife, Fredrika Runeberg. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki, and with sculptor Carl Eneas Sjöstrand. From 1858 through 1869 he studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen under Herman Wilhelm Bissen, acquiring a clear influence from the neoclassical style of Bissen's master Bertel Thorvaldsen. He married Lina Elfving (1841–1916) in 1867. They had six children.
  After periods living and working in Rome and Paris, Runeberg produced many of Helsinki's best-known examples of monumental public art.  The largest is the Alexander II Monument in Senate Square, a commission awarded jointly to Runeberg and sculptor Johannes Takanen, then completed by Runeberg after Takanen's death in 1885.  The pedestal features several allegorical figures.  Notably, the figure representing Law is a version of the Suomi-neito, the Finnish maiden, here cloaked in bearskin.
  He is buried in the Hietaniemi Cemetery in Helsinki.
caption: Runeberg family grave, Hietaniemi Cemetery, Helsinki
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