Richard Uutmaa
(1905–1977)
The Beach at Puise. 1962
Oil, canvas. 120 x 180 cm (framed)
price 57 000
A large-scale painting that touches on Richard Uutmaa’s favourite subject of coastal life. Unlike his other works, this one is epic in scale and carefully painted, making it one of Uutmaa’s most striking works of the 1960s. The artist moves deftly between the marine and the terrestrial, using different techniques to depict the two surfaces. The stormy sea is conveyed in cold tones and sweeping brushstrokes, while the land is rendered in dancing strokes and warm colours. The grandeur is added by the ample space allocated to the sky, which is expansive and covered with massive and even dramatic clouds. In the central field of the painting are the details of human activity: boats, nets, fishing nets, and people moving around them, with birds flying overhead. It is not just a snapshot of the situation, but Richard Uutmaa has created a generalisation of life on the beach, where nature and human meet.