2017Art - From the Treasury of the Estonian Art Museum - First Day Cover

Born in Hiiumaa, Ülo Sooster (1924–1970), whose fate led him to study in Tartu, where he was arrested and sent to Soviet forced labour camp, after which he became one of the central figures in Moscow’s underground art scene, always depicted juniper, fish, and egg as the main motifs of his art. These archetypal motifs of the island’s nature allowed Sooster to delve into the secrets of two-dimensional depiction and the search for the beginning of the universe. Although forest has often been portrayed in Estonian art, Juniper forest (1962) is not quite a traditional nature motif. In this almost symmetrical composition, the forest of junipers becomes a mysterious symbol of the artist’s spirituality. According to Sooster’s good friend Ilja Kabakov, the entire creation of Ülo has mythological roots, and even if the artist wanted to draw the most simple thing, he still ended up creating a cosmic mechanism.