Jaan Vahtra

Jaan Vahtra is one of the few, who has been entered both into the lexicons of Estonian artists and writers. His education and further years rather refer to being an artist. After the studies at home and abroad (in Riga and St. Petersburg) he also started teaching himself, in 1930ies already concentrated on writing of the reminiscences. In the beginning his works were similarly to other students of Vilhelms Purvi^tis (Paul Burman, Villem Ormisson) with the decline to impressionism, after that as the member of the Group of Estonian Artists could be detected a movement in the traces of cubism, later already took place concentration to graphic art that became the general part of the creation of Vahtra, according to which he is most of all valued.
In the work A company Vahtra handles the topic that has enchanted the drawers of Estonians since the mid-19th century. An Estonian is placed again and again at a pub table and it is thought that maybe this way the essence of the Estonian is brought out the best way. Still, Vahtra is not national-romantic and yearning, but rather drawing his sketches somewhere in a pub corner, having his hat pulled down to his eyes and a pipe in the corner of his mouth.
The work is exposed in the catalogue of the exhibition of the Tartu Art Museum Jaan Vahtra and the Estonian cubism under number 137.