Eesti kunsti oksjonid

Etching on paper. 1928.
Signature: 1 / Eduard Wiiralt

Eduard Wiiralt’s (1898-1954) “Orgy” (also known as “The Table” or “Feast” in the EKM digital collection) belongs to the artist’s turbulent Parisian period of the late 1920s. At that time, the grotesqueness that had previously been characteristic of Wiiralt’s graphics and had been influenced by German modernism in Dresden intensified. However, Wiiralt does not go overboard because he was able to temper the grotesque with subtle humor and a sense of style.

As if the Last Supper were a piece that pushes the concerns of its time aside, Wiiralt’s brilliant interpretation of human greed is a work that, in the same year that the artist had illustrated Francois Mauriac’s “Addition to Bossuet’s Treatise on Lust,” describes the dark side of modern life.

The intoxicant that figures in “Absinthe drinkers” has taken its place in this print as well, and it is not far from reaching the level of hallucinations. The party lasts until the early hours of the morning – or rather, until the next one begins. It is understandable why art historian Mai Levin considers this a preliminary work for Wiiralt’s works “Inferno” and “Cabaret” that were completed a few years later.

The print comes from the collection of Wiiralt’s good friend, an artist from Saarbrücken, with whom Wiiralt had close contact in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s.

Text: Katre Palm