1930s were a time for general abatement in the European art. The rebellion of avant-garde was passing and calmer tones arrived in the exhibition halls. Expressionist, cubist and surrealist paintings were replaced by realist, impressionist and neo-impressionist works of art. Assumptions were made about the reasons behind this phenomenon. One explanation was that the public was getting tired of avant-garde, another speaks about more strict rigid political regimes wanting to see art not as buffoonery, but as something customary, clear and realist. In Estonia it is very hard to imagine that the brief period of avant-garde of the 1920s could tire anyone by the 1930s; and the local “silent” era was not very controlling towards art. Although, in his memoirs, Eduard Ole recalls a discussion with Konstantin Päts, while painting his portrait. Päts had asked what Ole thought about Kristjan Raud’s illustrations for “Kalevipoeg”. Ole, of course, praised them, but Päts claimed: “I think they contain a lot of anatomical errors“.
1930s see the Estonian art as fairly steadfast and integral. Many think of this period as the highlight of Estonian art, seeing the completion of the best works, harmonious both in colour and form; and consider the overall level of art as extremely high. In Estonia various artists turned to realist landscape paintings for different reasons, starting with the example of French painters of the era – and ending with the artists’ personal causes, last but not least being their origin: Their parents were still peasants, millers and sailors – people who stood close to nature and appreciated its ease. August Gailit has described this Estonian controversy very well in his novel “Flaming Heart”: “And in our art there has to be the sound of fresh milk purling into tin buckets, the smell of birch whisks and the melancholy chime of church bells announcing the arrival of the glorious Saturday night to the working man”.
This change of direction can be well observed for instance in Eduard Wiiralt’s work. “Absinthe Drinkers“ (1933) is the swan song for his grotesque period, but if we look at Wiiralt’s work in the broader European context – and that’s how Wiiralt’s work should be looked at – then we see the end of the angst caused by World War I, expressive eruptions and portraying the dark side of life. What follows in Wiiralt’s work, follows also in Europe as a whole: Instead of avant-garde, we see calmer notes, anxiety is replaced by joy of everyday life; instead of drunks and harlots we see tigers and children. For Wiiralt, the end of the decade marks a period for reassuring his peace of mind and developing his filigree technique. The layout is grander, the lines are gentler, and the mood is softer. “Landscape near Paris (1937) “, where in a few years time German soldiers would roam, is still a cloudless and sunny ode to nature and art.
Ernö Koch’s cityscapes definitely belong to the 1930s intellectualism. The Estonians have started to get urbanized, their rustic heritage remains more and more a subject-matter for art and fiction and a new urban culture begins to emerge with its cafes, city streets, coachmen, students and the like. Town population grows steadily and the flow of Estonians moving from the country into the city is really noticeable. Koch pictures the towns as they were in the 1930s: not as big cities, but still tightly connected to the countryside. In front of Rakvere there are horses and in front of Tallinn there are fishermen; on the Pärnu shore the artist does not admire the crowd strutting on the beach, he focuses his attention to the blue-black-and-white flag or the big ship. These are cityscapes that would be impossible to create today.
In the 1930s the slum-realism started to seep into Estonian art, some have disdainfully called it kitchen realism, and others have seen it as the broadening of artists’ horizons and result of their descent from the ivory tower. Besides Andrus Johan, who is considered the master of this genre, similar tendencies can be seen in Arkadio Laigo’s work. “Freshening Up (1935) “is an interesting in-between: The main focus is on a very “artistic” look, the women are in quite unnatural poses and seems like the social angst has been washed away. On the other hand, they are surrounded by very common objects: a tin bathtub, a sauna bench and a jug of water.
1930s showed that the interest of the society towards art was increasing. Art had made its position more secure, exhibitions were being held, reviews were published, the audience was growing. The Tallinn Art Building opened - and 32 years after people wanted to know why Ants Laikmaa’s paintings were not presented side by side with a Grand Champion dairy cow - the personal show of Adamson-Eric was visited by a crowd of 12,000 people!  You have to remember that the exhibition was open only for ten days in the middle of a cold February. Although there were only 3 pieces purchased from the show, the increasing interest was remarkable.  Juhan Viiding, a known collector, writes outlining this period, that art collecting had become more democratic. On the previous decade the works of Konrad Mägi and the like could be seen in the collections of judges and lawyers, but during the 1930s Viiding already describes young families and office clerks who are willing to give up buying new furniture for a possibility to purchase a Greenberg or a Grünberg instead. The purpose of art collecting had changed again. Now it had reached a broader audience, acquiring art to one’s home was not an indicator of status (this did not stop the Bolsheviks from poking their bayonets into the paintings again during the 1940s), but it expressed good taste and a sensible way of life. Art on the walls of a home fulfilled its aesthetic function – in decorating the house – and the ethical one as well. Many saw art as a possibility to change a human being to the better, educate him in the spirit of higher values. We cannot, of course, talk about artists being wealthy, in their memoirs and letters they still complain about poor living standards, being misunderstood by the public and there are some leftist ideas spreading among the art community, but all-in-all, during the 1930s, a wider interest started to appear in the Estonian artists’ everyday doings.

In our auction selection this period is represented by the following works:

ALEKSANDER MÖLDROO (1902–1991)
Klooster vanas Serbias. 1930
Monastery in Old Serbia.

ERNÖ KOCH (1898–1970)
Rakvere. 1930
Rakvere.

ERNÖ KOCH (1898–1970)
Pärnu. 1931
Pärnu.

ERNÖ KOCH (1898–1970)
Pärnu rand. 1931
Pärnu Beach.

ERICH PEHAP (1912–1981)
Käed. 1930ndate algus
Hands. Early 1930s

EDUARD WIIRALT (1898–1954)
Absindijoojad. 1933
Absinthe Drinkers.

ARKADIO LAIGO (1901–1944)
Tualett. 1935
Freshening Up.

ERNÖ KOCH (1898–1970)
Tallinna vaade. 1936
View of Tallinn.

EDUARD WIIRALT (1898–1954)
Lapsed. 1937
Children.

EDUARD WIIRALT (1898–1954)
Lamav tiiger. 1937
The Lying Tiger.

EDUARD WIIRALT (1898–1954)
Maastik Pariisi lähedal. 1937
Landscape Near Paris.

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