Eesti kunsti oksjonid
Ülo Sooster “Kompositsioon laevadega”
Sügisoksjon 2024
Tempera on paper. 1961.
Signature: Sooster 61
| Measurements | 30 х 42,6 cm |
|---|---|
| Starting price | 7 000 € |
| Number of bids | 13 |
| Hammer price | 9 800 € |
This year, October 17th marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ülo Sooster (1924-1970), one of the most important innovators of Estonian post-war modernism. Both in Tallinn and in the artist’s birthplace on Hiiumaa, there will be extensive exhibitions from both private and museum collections and for good reason – he is one of the most internationally acclaimed Estonian artists. The brownish-orange tempera painting is one of the works that the Sooster Foundation is introducing to mark the festive anniversary: https://soosterfoundation.org/et/creation/paintings-60/page/3/.
This is an excellent example of the artist’s compositional, coloristic and modernist formal techniques, which he worked on in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Before us is an associative and temperamentally broad-brushed depiction of a harbor, in which attention is paid not so much to a specific image as to a poetic generalization.
The power of the piece is based on the apparent spontaneity and intensity of the sharp brown contour lines and orange surfaces, giving it spatial freedom. However, this impression remains only with the viewer because the artist himself analyzed his compositions with utmost thoroughness, aiming for spatial harmony of colors, background and forms.
Sooster also operates with the illusion of depth in his work, applying the techniques of classical perspective teaching. A radically influential work in its contemporary Estonian (and not to mention Moscow, where the work was created) artistic context, which effortlessly brings Sooster’s thoughts back to his native Estonian coast.
The composition was for decades part of the collection of the Italian philanthropist and art collector Alberto Sandretti who acquired it in the 1960s when he worked as a representative of the FIAT factory in the Soviet Union. The piece was exhibited at the exhibit of works from the Sandretti collection “Arte Contro” at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto, Italy, in 2007-2008, and is reproduced in its catalogue, page 140. The same exhibition also included Sooster’s ink drawing “Bears”.
The painting comes with a certificate from the Sooster Foundation.
Text: Katre Palm, Harry Liivrand