Eesti kunsti oksjonid

Tempera on cardboard. 1965.
Signature: Kits. 65 / “Suured Kalad” 1965. Elmar Kits.

Elmar Kits (1913-1972) was one of the most important Pallas painters and art innovators of the 1960s whose work at the beginning of that decade was characterized by a style of expression that offered transparent layers of color and a formal Cubist language. One of his favorite styles at the time was figurative and semi-abstract tempera, the presentation of which at a solo exhibition in Tartu in 1966 was later called “a manifestation of modern art and a highlight of the 1960s” (“Elmar Kitse fenomen”, 1994). The opening of this legendary exhibition was captured on film and reconstructed 50 years later as a new exhibition at the Tartu Art House (curated by Peeter Talvistu).

As a passionate fisherman, Kits often painted still-life motifs with fish but on this occasion he has added water fairies who, together with the human-sized fish, are caught in a unified vortex of movement. This creates a nude painting that is intertwined with the seascape, as if referring to some ancient mythological scene but is simply the fruit of the great master’s endless imagination.

The work is included and reproduced in the Tartu Art Museum exhibition catalogue “Elmar Kitse fenomen” (1994, no. 577).

Text: Mai Levin, Harry Liivrand