Herald Eelma
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Herald Eelma | |
|---|---|
| Born | 26 March 1934 Võhmuta, Järva County, Estonia |
| Citizenship | Estonian |
| Education | State Art Institute of the Estonian SSR (ERKI) |
| Known for | Printmaking and book illustration |
| Movement | Severe style |
| Awards | Kristjan Raud Art Award (1981, 1986) Grand Prize, 5th Tallinn Print Triennial (1980) Order of the White Star, 4th Class (1999) |
Herald Eelma (born 26 March 1934) is an Estonian printmaker, book illustrator and art educator.[1] He is regarded as one of the artists who renewed Estonian printmaking in the 1960s and 1970s and, together with Peeter Ulas, as a representative of the Estonian variant of the severe style.[2][3] He is especially known for his illustrations for editions of A. H. Tammsaare's Truth and Justice and the Kalevala.[4][5]
Eelma was born in Võhmuta in Järva County.[1] He graduated from Paide Secondary School in 1953 and then entered the State Art Institute of the Estonian SSR, graduating in 1959 as a printmaker.[1] He joined the Estonian Artists' Association in 1961 and became one of its honorary members in 2004.[1][6]
Career and work
After graduating, Eelma taught watercolour at the Estonian State Art Institute from 1960 to 1962 and then worked as a freelance artist until 1992.[1] In 1992 he joined Tallinn University of Arts as a lecturer in drawing, and from 1995 to 2000 he served as a professor and head of the drawing chair at the Estonian Academy of Arts.[1][4] He also taught at the Varsinais-Suomen Kansanopisto in Paimio, Finland.[1]
Eelma began exhibiting soon after graduation as both a printmaker and a book illustrator.[3] His diploma work, illustrations for Truth and Justice, was already seen as an early demonstration of his individual artistic language.[3] Later exhibition and curatorial texts have characterised his work by generalized motifs, a clear and economical line, and a gradual shift from the human figure toward landscape and nature motifs.[3][4] A Kumu Art Museum exhibition on 1970s Estonian graphics situated his work among the more subjective and surrealist tendencies in the medium.[7]
In 1972 Eelma was one of seven artists from Soviet Estonia included in Printmaking Today, a satellite exhibition of the 36th Venice Biennale at Ca' Pesaro.[8] Art-historical scholarship has described that appearance as an unusual and important international presentation of Estonian printmaking during the Soviet period.[8]
Book illustration has remained a major part of Eelma's oeuvre.[4] His principal illustrated books include editions of Tammsaare's Truth and Justice (1964–1969), Martti Haavio's Kalevala lood (1981), Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald's Põhja konn (1981), the Estonian-language Kalevala (1985), and Kalevalan kuvat (Oulu, 1987).[4][9][10][11] Works from his Kalevala cycle are held in the collection of the Art Museum of Estonia.[12]
Eelma remained active into the 21st century. In 2014 he presented the retrospective exhibition Aeg in Tallinn, and in 2019 a survey exhibition, Avatud värav, opened at Endla Theatre Gallery in Pärnu.[4][3]