Curated by Tiiu Talvistu with Mary-Ann Talvistu
Ado Vabbe (1892–1961) is widely regarded as one of the most vital Estonian modernists of the 1910s and ’20s. His career was deeply affected by the hostility toward nonconformist artists during the Soviet occupation of Estonia in 1918 and its subsequent reoccupation in 1940, when his realistic and figurative paintings, ripe with social commentary, met with a chilly reception. After 1944, when authorities began to demand socialist-realist content in art, Vabbe continued to paint both abstract and impressionist works and to share his knowledge of the European avant-garde as a teacher at the Pallas Art School in Tartu. Highlighting crucial stages of his career as an artist, illustrator, researcher, and educator, and including more than two hundred paintings and sketches, this exhibition will survey Vabbe’s contributions to Futurism, Cubo-Futurism, Expressionism, and abstraction, while emphasizing his ingenious strategies for adapting those international movements to Estonian culture.
