Märt Laarman 1896–1979 Harbour. 1923

Märt Laarman was one of the most innovative Estonian artists, who in the early 1920s led the short-lived emergence of cubist-geometric art in our art history. A year after completing “Harbor,” Laarman joined the avant-garde Estonian Artists’ Group and exhibited his woodcuts in Tallinn at the Baltic Cubists exhibition, which were compiled in the portfolio “7 Woodcuts.” In this portfolio, three prints depicted a harbor, including the present one.

“His cubistically strict graphics certainly surprise with their urban character: typically, one might have expected different subject matter from a young man originating from Viljandi County. Alongside city views, the artist’s attention is drawn to a technicist environment, which he portrays from quite intriguing angles in his woodcuts ‘Harbor,’ ‘Motorcycle,’ and ‘Machinist’ (all from 1923), which undoubtedly signal a new sensibility in our art,” wrote Mart Lepp.