Adamson-Eric Museum celebrates its 40th anniversary
The Adamson-Eric Museum is holding a series of jubilee events and a community day to mark its 40th anniversary. The museum features a new interactive screen with a timeline of Adamson-Eric’s life and work.
A museum dedicated to the Estonian artist Adamson-Eric was opened in a newly renovated building in Tallinn’s Old Town on 2 December 1983. The museum’s collection was founded by a donation from Adamson-Eric’s widow, Mari Adamson, consisting of nearly 1,000 works of art. Since then, the museum’s collection has almost doubled.
During its 40 years of history, the museum has collected and explored Adamson-Eric’s diverse oeuvre and presented it both in Estonia and abroad. The museum has hosted nearly 190 exhibitions featuring classic modernism, as well as contemporary and applied art. “We have had several exhibition series on Estonian women artists and exile art, as well as on Nordic artists and Latvian modernism. Japanese art and culture have been an important focus over the past couple of decades. We have also published a number of books,” said the museum’s curator, Kersti Koll.
“Visitors are at the heart of the museum, so we often organise lectures, workshops and concerts. Each exhibition is accompanied by educational programmes for children and young people to stimulate an interest in art,” added the programme manager Karin Vicente.
Gallery
The museum has acquired a new modern digital exhibit for its birthday. The interactive timeline presents Adamson-Eric’s life and work, travels, exhibitions, family and friends. “Adamson-Eric’s work and life were exceptionally varied. The timeline introduces the viewer to the artist’s formative influences, showing the events and places that were important to him and providing a brief overview of the cultural and historical context,” said Annika Teras, who created the timeline. In addition to photos, sketches and personal correspondence, the exhibit features the character of Hugo the Bull, who invites children and the young at heart to join him on his adventures.
The anniversary programme will be launched with the talk Adamson-Eric and Stalin’s Era by the historian Professor Emeritus David Vseviov on 30 November at 5 pm. He will explore the complex historical context of the artist’s life and work amidst the political turmoil of the 20th century. The talk will be held in Estonian.
On Saturday, 2 December, the museum will host a public day. At 1 p.m., Kersti Koll will give a curatorial tour of the permanent exhibition Adamson-Eric. Modernism and Diversity. At 4 p.m., Marina Dunajeva will lead a guided tour in Russian. A porcelain painting workshop will be open from 2 to 4 p.m. Participants are invited to create ceramic tiles inspired by Adamson-Eric’s unique designs. Both children and adults are welcome. Families with children can explore the permanent exhibition with fun activity sheets and complete tasks on the timeline with Hugo the Bull. On 2 December, admission will be reduced to three euros to mark the museum’s anniversary. Visitors will be offered coffee and sweets.
On 7 December at 5 pm, the museum will host a Guitar Night, featuring the young performers Karl Petti, Cyrano Liu and Hans Joosep Alt. The long-running series of guitar concerts is organised in collaboration with the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre and is curated by Professor Heiki Mätlik and Kirill Ogorodnikov.
For more information, see adamson-eric.ekm.ee/publikuprogramm/