Eesti kunsti oksjonid

Oil on cardboard. 1950.
Signature: Lepo Mikko 1911 g. Tallinn Sügis 1950

The beginning of the 1950s is the purest impressionist episode in the work of Lepo Mikko (1911-1978) as the background of his earlier works was rather an individualistic synthesis of post-impressionist movements. Although impressionistic views of nature can also be found in Mikko’s Moscow-period pieces where he painted on the banks of the picturesque Senezh Lake in 1950, “Autumn” was created in Estonia and using local materials, as indicated by the information on the back of the work.

However, this painting also reached Moscow in 1951 where it was presented as one of three pieces by Lepo Mikko at the All-Union Exhibition in the Manege. The landscape painting depicting golden autumn brings the viewer a nostalgic view of Estonia. Combining the composition’s mellow golden-brown trees in the foreground and the vast panorama in the background, it expresses both the individual beauty of each plant and the monumentality of the undulating landscape.

“I am looking for something permanent, primitive and enduring in nature,” Mikko writes in his notes. “I have painted many landscape views, I have hunted the hills and lakes of South Estonia not for beautiful ready-made pictures, motifs but for something (material) that the power of nature has once created and from which it is possible to create something.” (“Lepo Mikko 1911-1978)”, EKM, 2013. Pp. 30-31).

Text: Mai Levin, Katre Palm