Aleksander Kulkoff 1889–1970 City View. 1925

Of Russian origin, Aleksander Kulkoff was an avid traveler who, even before the Second World War, journeyed to places such as Italy in his personal car. However, he had visited Italy earlier as well. Views of Venice by Kulkoff are known from 1925, and the present work comes from that trip. Like many Estonian artists, Kulkoff was enchanted by Italy not only because of its light and shadow, but also by its distinctive urban structure. Narrow streets, buildings rising on either side, clotheslines stretched between them, and people sitting on the streets created an unexpectedly exotic scene, compelling enough to depict.

Surprisingly many artists of other nationalities have lived in Estonia. Paul Burman, Andrei Jegorov, and Aleksander Kulkoff, who was born in Moscow, completed higher education there, but served in the Finnish military and came to Estonia at the age of nineteen. By the mid-1930s, newspapers wrote that it was no longer surprising: “Painter Aleksander Kulkoff is Russian by nationality, yet fully Estonianized.”