Eesti kunsti oksjonid

Photo. 2015/2025.
Signature: Kaupo Kikkas 2015/2025

For the first time in the history of Allee Gallery’s auctions, the medium of photography has been curated into the selection and for a very remarkable reason. The 90th birthday celebration of the world-famous Estonian composer Arvo Pärt is underway, stretching from Tallinn all the way to New York. The author of this iconic photograph is one of Estonia’s most renowned photographers today, Kaupo Kikkas (b. 1983). The photograph itself is also world-famous: on September 14, 2025, it was widely published in one of the world’s most famous newspapers, The New York Times.

Kikkas is one of the world’s most renowned classical music photographers whose work has appeared in most of the world’s major publications and on more than a hundred album covers. The portrait of Arvo Pärt at our auction was taken in 2015 during the creation of “Adam’s Passion” – a large-scale work, the authors of which are Pärt and world-famous director Robert Wilson. The captured moment of the composer is like an intimate prayer, where we see Pärt in his characteristic pose, listening. The composition allows the viewer to soar with these sounds.

Listening to oneself, inner silence, is one of Pärt’s most characteristic qualities and through this work, the viewer can stop time for a moment with the composer and rediscover their own inner silence. Kaupo Kikkas has said: “Arvo has been my greatest inspiration – not only with his music but even more so with his words and presence.”

This is a first printing of the photograph.

Text: Harry Liivrand, Katre Palm