In the Studio

Endel Kõks (21.04.1912-25.11.1983)

1939
Oil on canvas
90 x 100 cm

Endel Kõks completed his studies at the Pallas school in 1940. This work was completed a year earlier. The work probably depicts Kõks’s studio. Indrek Hirv writes about the social life of artists at that time: “Parties often ended at Endel Kõks’s studio. After Aunapuu [Hermann Aunapuu – an artist] went to war (they had shared a workroom until then), Kõks rented a studio in a low-rise wooden house on the corner of Kalevi and Lille streets, which is still standing today. Pallas was just a few dozen steps away from there. It also had a good upright piano and space for dancing.” The upright piano can be seen in this work yet other details are also telling, first and foremost the Cezanne catalogue, which looks like Kõks’s manifesto. Large windows strangely contrast the melancholic condition that prevails in the room.