Olga Terri 1916–2011 Man with a Shovel. 1940

Olga Terri was one of the very few female artists to start in the first half of the 20th century. ‘Women as artists and graphic artists… Are they capable of achieving anything at all?’ – an article in 1938 asked rhetorically. Terri broke through the barrier of silence, and not with the notions of softness, gentleness, family issues, the stove, and children that are usually attributed to ‘female artists’ and which usually prove to be false. Existential themes can be seen in her work, an abandonment of ornamentation, a concise and laconic formal language. This painting is reminiscent of one of Eerik Haamer’s wartime works, aptly and with particular sensitivity summing up the fragility and tenacity, the heaviness and tenderness of being human. A masterful work that conveys the human drama of the land.