The Adamson-Eric Museum is presenting exquisite works by Kaja Kärner, one of the central figures of the legendary Tartu circle

On 25 October, the exhibition Kaja Kärner: Friendship and Time will open in the Adamson-Eric Museum. This is the first time that the oeuvre of one of the most outstanding “girls” of the Tartu circle will be exhibited on such a large scale in Tallinn.

Kaja Kärner (1920–1998) belonged to the Tartu circle, which consisted of the last members of the Pallas Art Society and was the first unofficial art circle in Estonia after the Second World War.

“She was one of the first artists in Estonia, who, as early as the second half of the 1950s, started to use abstract art language, which was officially forbidden, and created compositions and collages with good rhythm and colour. Her genre paintings are also among the most memorable in Estonian art. In her everyday scenes in laconic forms, the artist perfectly captured the atmosphere of the era and her works of subtle colouring and hidden irony offer fascinating glimpses into the everyday life of that period. Her cityscapes, interiors full of meaningful details and pictures depicting meetings of the circle, fascinate the viewer. During all of her creative life, the artist was fascinated by landscape painting with charming colours,” states Kersti Koll, the curator of the exhibition, adding that all that can be seen at the exhibition at the Adamson-Eric Museum.

Besides Kärner’s well-known works, such as Tiina and Breadmen (1957), Occupiers in Kuressaare (Sailors) (1957), Listening to the Voice of America (1959), Haircut (1959), On a Chest of Drawers (1961) and Funeral Feast (1961), the exhibition also displays works from private collections which offer nice surprises to art lovers.

Kaja Kärner studied at the State School of Applied Arts, Pallas Art School and National Art Institute of Tartu from 1937 to 1948. As a talented student of Ado Vabbe’s, she was appointed a drawing teacher at the National Art Institute of Tartu right after graduation and became a member of the Estonian Artists’ Association.

Kaja Kärner belonged to the generation which was ready to vigorously enter the Estonian art scene at the end of the 1940s, but due to Stalinist repressions became one of the most terribly treated generations in Estonian art history. In 1949, many of her friends and schoolmates were deported to prison camps in Siberia. Kärner was lucky to stay in Tartu, but she lost her job as a drawing teacher and was expelled from the Estonian Artists’ Association. In the following years, she worked as a label designer in the Tartu Commercial Department, and started exhibiting her works again only in 1958.

After Stalinism was denounced in 1956 and the male artists from her circle of friends started to return from Siberia, Kaja Kärner’s schoolmates and intellectual companions – the “boys” who had been released from prison camps, and the “girls” who had survived the repressions in the homeland, Kaja Kärner among them – founded the first Estonian post-war group of artists. Together, the group passionately searched for an unofficial art language and new modern means of expression, but also strived to retain the attitudes and aesthetics of the pre-war free art scene. Mostly, their works of art were created in their own homes in Karlova, and were hidden from the public. This is how some of the most vanguard works of the Estonian art of that period were born.

In 1984, Kärner again became a member of the Estonian Artists’ Association, and in 1989 she joined the Tartu Art Society. She was a highly valued art teacher, as well as a founding member and one of the main lecturers of Tartu Art Society’s studio (the Konrad Mägi Studio, an art school resembling a free academy) in 1988–1998.

The exhibition Kaja Kärner: Friendship and Time is a continuation of the Adamson-Eric Museum’s long-term series of exhibitions “The Woman Artist and her Era”, which has introduced the works of Karin Luts, Agathe Veeber, Lydia and Natalie Mei and many others. It is also a logical continuation of the exhibition of the works of Valve Janov, another important female member of the group, which was displayed in the museum in 2021.

The varied educational programme of the exhibition concentrates on the nuanced colouring of Kaja Kärner’s works, her painting techniques and her era. The rich public programme includes discussions, curator tours, “Different Tuesday” events and, as a novel addition, a course in acrylic painting.

The works displayed at the exhibition come from the collections of the Art Museum of Estonia, Tartu Art Museum, Estonian Literary Museum and Konrad Mägi’s Studio, as well as from the artist’s family’s collection and several private collections.

The exhibition Kaja Kärner: Friendship and Time will remain open until 16 March 2025.

Curator of the exhibition: Kersti Koll
Exhibition architect and graphic designer: Inga Heamägi