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Edgar Valter. A Summer Night’s Dream

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Järvi Pust, gallerist at Haus Gallery

Edgar Valter (1929–2006) is a familiar name to almost every Estonian and they definitely know more than just his name, because as a book illustrator he has given looks visible to the eye to a number of characters, who have been companions for many generations during their years of growing up and often even later. As an artist, Edgar Valter was a completely self-taught person. He graduated a non-complete high school (6–7 years) as a child of a large family in 1945 in Tallinn, and his working life started immediately after that. He worked as a sailor, painter and in many other valuable positions as well.

On the picture: Edgar Valter. A Summer Night’s Dream

The first caricatures drawn by him already made it to the public through media in 1944, and the first children’s book illustrated by him reached his readers in 1948. Regardless of his popularity, the fact that the loved book graphic artist was also a painter in addition to other jobs he did, still comes as a surprise to many, but the painting creations, independent of other actions, has been in an important place in Edgar Valter’s life from the 1960s. 

Even though Valter has definitely been able to wander in a more thematically free way as a painter than as an illustrator, he also has characteristic literary indications to his paintings. “Summer Night’s Dream” is quite a general title, but it leads the thoughts of even those viewers, who do not read much to the immortal creations of Shakespeare, instantly adding another level to the interpretation of this work. The poses of the figures, which are in close relation to geometry, are restrained but poetic, secondary to the man and woman are the newly arrived animal and bird. The whole world has suddenly stopped in this moment, which is invisible, yet filled with magical moonlight.      

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