News > Art and meetings. Eduard, Jaak and Kaido

Art and meetings. Eduard, Jaak and Kaido

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Järvi Pust, gallerist and art consultant at Haus Gallery

Art brings people together and not just to exhibitions and museum halls. Art may be a connection and link between the course of life and the destiny of people, and in the middle of the most ordinary of days.

On the picture: Eduard Ole, “Wintry Harjumägi”

In May 1898 a handsome baby boy was born to a family farm in Kaagjärve Parish, whose parents named him Eduard Julius, and who is a protagonist of one of the following meeting stories – Eduard Ole, an outstanding and masterly Estonian artist. The 16-year-old Eduard, inspired and encouraged by his art teacher, packs his things and flies to Russia, to Penza Art School. Penza at this time was not some sort of a dump, left abandoned by people and the lord, but this art school was a branch of the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint-Petersburg, which is why its students often visited the galleries and museums in Saint-Petersburg and Moscow, and were constantly connected with the lively and operative art life. This educational institution remained the only one that gave Eduard Ole regulated art studies and hereinafter he let life and the world teach him by taking long trips around Europe, repeatedly staying in Paris. This kind of immunity from conventions and courage to experiment (and also to be wrong) is probably what sets Eduard Ole apart from his contemporary artists. 

Life and history moved on its own as Eduard Ole packed his suitcase in Estonia for the last time in 1943, and fled from the war and from the changing political regime. His first stop was Finland, where he was graciously sheltered by his acquaintances, but in 1944 he finally made it to Sweden, which became his new home for the next 50 years. In the same year, 1943, this gracious family also welcomed another handsome baby boy Jaak, who grew up meeting his uncle Eduard often, and whose walls at home had a lot of his paintings.    

Time passed. In February 1963 another handsome baby boy, Kaido, was born in Tallinn, who studied painting and design in the Estonian Academy of Arts, and who become an internationally known and recognised artist Kaido Ole, a proud owner of Konrad Mäe's medal and Kristjan Raud’s art prize. Known for his unique style, he is a sharp and witty creator. His grandfather and Eduard Ole were brothers. Kaido is naturally aware and interested in his confrère relative and when he was in Stockholm in 1994, in connection with his first foreign exhibition, he also went to visit his great uncle. Unfortunately, Eduard Ole is distrustful of Estonian people and the meeting is cancelled, but later he sends Kaido a beautiful and warm letter, which made up for the failed attempt to meet. Eduard Ole passed away the following year. Kaido Ole helped to arrange the funeral and he inherited his great uncle's easel, brushes, colours and a wristwatch.

In November 2016, Kadio Ole went to the Haus Gallery, because he had an appointment with the exhibitionist for an interview. A dozen minutes later, Jaak, born in 1943, steps in, who has become a friend of the Haus Gallery as he is a great art lover and visits every time he is in Estonia. Jaak looked at the exhibition, talked to me and asked if there was something there by Eduard Ole. There was, and actually there were quite a few works. We went to the picture storage room, looked at the pictures and Jaak told of how Eduard Ole stayed with his parents in Finland when he left Estonia, he talks about his meetings with him in Sweden - what they talked about and what they were like back then. At the same time, Kaido Ole is sitting a few metres away from us behind the storage room wall, and all of a sudden I realise that this would be a good time to introduce them. The men shake hands, both of them are happily overwhelmed by such a coincidence, because both of them have their own memories of Eduard Ole and matters, which are now shared. One has a bunch of stories about people who really existed, family friends and fate companions in exile in some sense; the other has opinions and comments about his creations from different periods from the point of view of an artist - how the paintings and watercolour paintings done in Estonia differed from the ones created in Sweden, who has influenced his great uncle in his opinion and in which way. And there, in between them, though only in the form of the work of art, but still very much present, is Eduard Ole himself, who made these men meet in a completely unintentional way. "And look," says Kaido Ole, raising his hand and showing his wrist, "this is Eduard Ole's watch that he left me, it still works, and really well..."

The watch and the calendar tell us about the passing of time; art, however, tell us about its insignificance. Art is floating like an airship in time and sometimes above it, using its ability to sometimes travel ahead, sometimes back, and rejoice over those people who are met along the way.               

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