Eesti kunsti oksjonid
Varmo Pirk “Sügis metsas” (pöördel “Purjekad”)
Kevadoksjon 2025
Mixed media on paper. 1965.
Signature: VPirk 1965 / Varmo Pirk “Sügis metsas” 1965 / Varmo Pirk “Purjekad”
| Measurements | 37 x 48 cm |
|---|---|
| Starting price | 2 500 € |
| Number of bids | 1 |
| Hammer price | 2 500 € |
Varmo Pirk (1913-1980), who got his formal art education under Villem Ormisson, Aleksander Vardi and several other great masters, began to produce abstract paintings with a Cubist feel and high-level figural compositions in the early 1960s – a style that was very popular in Estonian painting during that decade.
A good example of Pirk’s conditional stylistics is “Autumn in the Forest” where he uses flowing dark contours to paint trees in the red and yellow tones typical of that season. By shaping such botanical motifs into rounded forms, Pirk sharpens the viewer’s senses, making us pinch ourselves to assure ourselves that we have not entered a fantasy world of colorful dreams.
In the foreground of the painting, he paints the surface of the water, which in the background expresses the sky in the same color. This is, of course, a conscious coloristic technique to hold the composition together. He has also cultivated a similar cubist style, for example, in his 1966 painting “Landscape with a Lake” (Art Museum of Estonia).
Text: Harry Liivrand, Katre Palm