Celebrating its 106th anniversary, the Art Museum of Estonia displays a treasure trove of world art history to the public

The Art Museum of Estonia, which celebrates its 106th anniversary on 17 November, offers art lovers extraordinary experiences at its exhibitions, including masterpieces by such great artists as Lucas Cranach, El Greco, Gerhard Richter, and Flemish and Dutch painters. The entire anniversary-week programme emphasises the museum’s role as an engaging partner for a wide and diverse audience: art speaks to all ages and in all languages.

“One hundred and six years of the Art Museum of Estonia is a story of how art enriches life and connects people. Our audience programmes show that the museum is open to everyone: young and old, the local public and visitors from abroad,” said Sirje Helme, Chief Executive Officer of the Art Museum of Estonia.

One of the opening events of the birthday week will be a conversation at the Kadriorg Art Museum on 19 November, starting at 6 pm, with Kadi Polli, the current director of Kumu and former director of the Kadriorg Art Museum, who will talk about the role of international cooperation in the work of a museum dedicated to foreign art.

Children are welcome to attend the workshop accompanying the newly opened children’s exhibition Tu and Whozzy at Kumu. On 23 November, adult visitors are welcome at the audience programme of the exhibition Dives Toletana: Treasures of Toledo Cathedral from Medieval to El Greco, which will soon open at the Niguliste Museum. Art is also great for language learning, and therefore the creative Estonian language lesson Art Language – the Art of Language will take place at the Mikkel Museum on 19 November.

On 17 November, the birthday of the Art Museum of Estonia, the recipients of the scholarships of the Art Museum of Estonia Friends of Art Society will be announced. For the first time, the Curator of the Year Scholarship will be awarded, and its recipient will be Greta Koppel for curating the exhibition Bernardo Strozzi: Beyond Caravaggio. The large, innovative international project made a significant contribution to the study of this artist and, more broadly, several topics related to 17th-century art.

The Outstanding Museum Worker Scholarship will be awarded to Ulrika Jõemägi, the head of the archives of the Art Museum of Estonia, and the Museum Educator of the Year is Anu Lüsi, the curator of educational programmes at the Kumu Art Museum. This August, the Adamson-Eric Young Artist Scholarship, awarded by the Art Museum of Estonia and the Art Museum of Estonia Friends of Art Society, was awarded to Katariin Mudist, a master’s student at the Estonian Academy of Arts. This year, the Art Museum of Estonia Friends of Art Society supported four scholarship recipients with a total of 12,000 euros. The museum’s colleague awards will be announced on 24 November.

On the occasion of the 106th anniversary of the Art Museum of Estonia, the Art Museum of Estonia Friends of Art Society will present the museum with Ülo Sooster’s painting Windows (1968‒1970). Begun in the last years of the artist’s life, the work, showing empty windows, offers a glimpse into Sooster’s creative process.

To mark the anniversary of the Art Museum of Estonia, new museum window displays have also opened at the Tallinn and Tartu bus stations. The bus stations feature reproductions from the exhibition From Mittens to Köler. The Birth of the Museum’s Collection, which was open at the Kadriorg Art Museum until March this year and introduced the history of the formation of the Art Museum of Estonia’s collections, from the museum’s founding in 1919 until World War II.

The Tallinn Bus Station exhibition includes reproductions of Ants Laikmaa’s Mosque Sidi Okba in Kairuan (1911) and Villem Ormisson’s Apples on the Carpet (1927), while at the Tartu Bus Station, passengers are greeted by Konrad Mägi’s Norwegian Landscape (1908–1910) and Karin Luts’s Still Life with Pears (1930).

During the museum’s birthday week, from 17 to 23 November, you can purchase the annual pass for the Art Museum of Estonia at a 15% discount. The annual pass for the Art Museum of Estonia allows you and a companion to visit the five branches (the Kumu Art Museum, Kadriorg Art Museum, Mikkel Museum, Niguliste Museum and Adamson-Eric Museum) an unlimited number of times.