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On Friday, April 21 the 41st art classics auction took place in the Haus Gallery. Amongst other works also the sculpture called „Champion“ by Amandus Adamson was sold, that meaning the long lost cultural value to return and stay in the homeland. The hammer price – 57 200 euros – is gallery’s auction record of post Estonian Kroon times.
On the picture: Amandus Adamson. Champion (Georg Lurich)
The sculpture of Georg Lurich by the honorable artist Amandus Adamson found its way back to Estonia through long complicated twists, and it is probably the initial variant of the work. The sculpture was poured in bronze in Saint Petersburg in 1903 in the casting and bronze workshop of French entrepreneur Adolf Moran. The work created by the wrestling legend was first exhibited with the name “Champion” in an art exhibition in 1904 in the Tsardom of Russia to which Estonia also then belonged to. Then the statue was sent to USA, to the world exhibition of Saint-Louis where it was also mentioned. After the end of the exhibition the work got lost and it found its way back to the homeland just now, over a 100 years later.
As far as it is known, this work has been poured in bronze only three times. Two other ingots are respectively part of the honorable collections of Estonian Art Museum and Estonian Sports Museum. The first work now has the change to get a crown jewel spot in some representable private collection. The work is made especially piquant by the later added fig tree leaf, which characterizes the quite usual tendency to cover some parts of the art works for decency reasons.
In addition, this year’s Haus Gallery spring auction had a rich choice of other notable works waiting for their owner, from Eduard Wiiralt’s surreal monotype technique rare works “Scene on the Street”, but also name authors such as Jaan Vahtra, Paul Burman, Elmar Kits, Johannes Võerahansu, Richard Uutmaa, to the richly awarded photo “Little Biker” by Tõnu Noorits. With the last work, Haus Gallery started a new tradition to offer at least one work belonging to the photo classics in every auction in order to make people more aware of the value of that genre.
Haus Gallery’s art classic auctions take place twice a year and offer works throughout the art history of Estonia by focusing on the best from private collections. Current operation year is the 20th for Haus Gallery. Just as old is the continuous art auction tradition of Estonia, which the gallery innovatively started in the autumn of 1997.