Eesti kunsti oksjonid

Oil on cardboard. 1959.
Signature: Varmo 959 aatomplahvatus

Varmo Pirk (1913-1980), who studied at Pallas in the late 1930s and 1940s under the tutelage of art master Kaarel Liimand, Villem Ormisson and Aleksander Vardi, found the opportunities for expression offered by modernist art in the second half of the 1950s to be the freedom and excitement he had been waiting for. Inspired by Picasso’s form formations and cubist compositional organization, Pirk painted the most avant-garde pieces of his oeuvre in 1959, the pair of paintings “Dancer” and “Atomic explosion”.

Taking the human figure apart and putting it back together like an analytical cubist, Pirk conveys a very strong emotion. This is symbolized not only by the mouth open to scream, but also by the body language with gesticulating hands and feet.

Text: Harry Liivrand