Eduard Wiiralt

While travelling in Europe, Eduard Wiiralt painted the portrait of a younger man with obvious liking. The work seems to lack a title of the artist’s own making – Eduard Wiiralt was known as a very silent person, for whom the visual rather than the verbal part of the work was important. This is how, in books, catalogues, exhibitions, etc., this work was circulated during the Soviet era with an empirical title that has now become part of history. Nonetheless, ideological questions seem to arise in the internationally politically correct European Union, as we learn from the Postimees: ‘Potentially offensive language and references to ethnicity have once again been removed from a number of Agatha Christie crime novels, The Guardian and Telegraph report.’

Naturally, the KUMU Art Museum’s exhibition programme has also kept up with the times. The dilemma has been artificially created in this cultural context, but what choices do we make now, in 2023? The work can be freely exhibited on the wall without any question, as Wiiralt has only written his autograph under the graphic sheet, an aesthetic that many later graphic artists consciously tried to imitate.