Jaan Vahtra

Cover design for Richard Roht’s book Nauding (Pleasure) (Noor-Eesti 1929)

The romance novel Nauding (Pleasure) was published by Richard Roht in 1929 (second edition 1994) and is described as follows: a nice young girl travels from the countryside to the city in search of happiness, she meets all sorts of men, falls in love with a swindler, falls into the clutches of a brutal innkeeper, befriends a rich Englishman who promises to marry her and take her to England… and just when she is losing hope, she finds her great love and a new purpose in life.
Jaan Vahtra has let his imagination fly when drawing the book cover. He depicts dancing figures offering goblets of wine, apparently trying to manipulate the farm girl with their enticements. The design is strong, abstracted, mathematical (three figures), and slightly geometrical. Jaan Vahtra, a painter with multifaceted talents, was active in the 1920s as a member of the Group of Estonian Artists at the forefront of Estonian avant-garde art.