Avo Keerend and Evi Tihemets. Colour in Estonian Graphic Art
Avo Keerend (1920–2012) experimented with multicoloured decorative forms (linocut and plastic cut) as early as the mid-1960s. The series Stereoscopic Forms (1969, linocut) became the source of his more recent, modernist prints. Keerend's geometric works from the 1970s allude both to the legacy of international modernism (Paul Klee and Joan Miró) and the reformation movements of Estonian art in the 1920s, particularly cubism and constructivism.
Evi Tihemets (1932) was the first to show coloured graphic art in exhibitions, around 1968–1969. The colour magic of her diverse oeuvre was born in 1967 with the lithograph Red Queen (inspired by Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There). Powerful geometric shapes have usually been combined in Tihemets's oeuvre with portraits carried out in various techniques (e.g. drypoint), and with sketchy or even photographed figures. When portraying her friends and companions, the graphic artist often refers to complicated mental processes and always displays a strong social streak, even when playing around with forms.

Photo: Stanislav Stepaško