Eesti kunsti oksjonid

Drypoint, etching on paper. 1938.
Signature: WIIRALT 1938 / Eau forte et pointe sèche 1938 / Eduard Wiiralt

In the 1930s, Eduard Wiiralt (1898-1954) began to feel a need for peace, harmony and purity of soul, and the grotesque that had previously dominated his work began to recede. The new approach has been described as poetic realism, which Wiiralt found through sensitive depictions of animals and children.

Jaan Grünberg has described in his memoirs how Wiiralt sat absorbed in their old house, without electricity, and engraved sleeping children by candlelight. His best-known models were the children of his friends and acquaintances, especially the little Frenchman Claude LeRoy and also the children of the Estonians Jaan and Vally Must, who lived in Paris. The present print is based on the last portraits of his son.

The 1938 etching “Children” has a fresh and immediate effect. Initially, there were two more children’s heads in the back right, which are visible in the first proof print but the artist removed them from the plate and in the final version there’s more free space. Next to the peacefully sleeping children, one is drawing at a table, and in the forefront sits a joyful figure with cherries and gooseberries like a young Bacchus. The treatment of his open smiling face is reminiscent of the artist’s drawing “Arabian Boy” from the same year.

The work is also part of the collection of the Art Museum of Estonia.

Text: Vappu Thurlow