imported>Jevansen: Moving from Category:Modern painters to Category:Estonian modern painters using Cat-a-lot

2025-03-17T03:37:40Z

Moving from Category:Modern painters to Category:Estonian modern painters using Cat-a-lot

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{{Short description|Estonian painter (1924–1970)}}

{{Expand Estonian|date=December 2008|topic=bio}}

{{Infobox artist
| name = Ülo Sooster
| image =
| caption = ''Eye in the Egg'' (1962) by Ülo Sooster
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1924|10|17}}
| birth_place = [[Ühtri]], [[Käina Parish]], [[Hiiumaa]], [[Estonia]]
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1970|10|25|1924|10|17}}
| death_place = [[Moscow]], [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russian SFSR]], [[Soviet Union]]
| nationality = Estonian
| field = [[Painting]]
| training = [[Tartu Art College]]
| movement = [[Modernism]] <br> [[Soviet Nonconformist Art]]
| website = https://sooster.ee
| patron =
| awards =
}}
'''Ülo Ilmar Sooster''' (October 17, 1924 in [[Ühtri]], [[Käina Parish]] – October 25, 1970 in [[Moscow]])<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.geni.com/people/%C3%9Clo-Sooster/6000000007790132273|title=Ülo Ilmar Sooster}}</ref> was an [[Estonia]]n [[Soviet Nonconformist Art|nonconformist]] painter.

Ülo Sooster was born the village of Ühtri on the Estonian island of [[Hiiumaa]]. He was the son of Johannes Sooster and Veera Sooster (''née'' Tatter) and had a sister, Meedi, two years younger. His father was later remarried to Linda Vahtras. He was the cousin of the ceramist [[Mall Valk]] (née Sooster).<ref>{{cite news |last1=Mäeumbaed |first1=V. |title=Hiiumaa ajaloomälestised |url=https://dea.digar.ee/cgi-bin/dea?a=d&d=noukogudehiiumaa19720224.2.10&e=-------et-25--1--txt-txIN%7ctxTI%7ctxAU%7ctxTA------------- |access-date=March 3, 2024 |work=Nõukogude Hiiumaa |issue=24 |date=February 24, 1972 |page=3}}</ref> He was educated at [[Tartu Art College]] where he studied [[surrealism]] during the years 1945–1949. In 1949, his studies were cut short when he was arrested and, like hundreds of thousands of other Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians, he was arrested and deported by the Soviet authorities to [[Gulag]]. Sooster was sentenced to ten years of hard labour in the [[Karlag|Karaganda camp]].<ref>More than 10% of the entire adult Baltic population was deported or sent to penal servitude in Siberia or Kazakhstan [[Gulag]] camps in the years after [[World War II]] : Heinrihs Strods, Matthew Kott (Spring 2002). "The file on [[operation "Priboi"]]: A re-assessment of the mass deportations of 1949". Journal of Baltic Studies 33 (1)</ref> In 1956, during the [[Nikita Khrushchev|Khrushchev]] [[Khrushchev Thaw|Thaw]], he was released and 'rehabilitated' by denouncing [[Stalinism]].<ref>[http://oxfordindex.oup.com/view/10.1093/benz/9780199773787.article.B00172299 SOOSTER, Ullo (1924 - 1970), Painter, animation artist] in [[Bénézit]]</ref> He returned to Estonia in 1956, but in 1957 he went to Moscow, and began intensive practice as [[Soviet Nonconformist Art|non-conformist artist]].

In 1962, he exhibited his work ''[[Eye in the Egg]]'' at the [[Moscow Manege]] exhibition that turned out to become a barrier for the official acceptance of modern art: the exhibitors received [[Manege Affair|an angry reprimand]] from Soviet leader [[Nikita Khrushchev]]. Ülo Sooster was one of several artists, to whom Khruschev addressed directly. Sooster's widow narrated:
{{bquote|"Khrushchev walked around the room, went up to Yulo's blue painting and asked: "What is this?" "A lunar landscape," Yulo answered. "Have you been there, asshole?" Khrushchev began to yell wildly. And Yulo answered: "That's how I imagine it." "I'll send you to the West, formalist, no, no, I'll deport you, no, I'll send you to a camp!" Khrushchev continued to rage. And Yulo answered: "I've already been there." Then Khrushchev said that no, he wouldn't deport him, but he would re-educate him."<ref>Фёдор Ромер, "Рыбий глаз", ''Еженедельный Журнал'', January 15, 2002 ([http://www.artinfo.ru/ru/news/main/OKA-14-Sooster.htm online copy])</ref>}}

Sooster worked with [[Ilya Kabakov]] who wrote a monograph of Sooster's work which Kabakov kept throughout the Soviet period and which Kabakov finally published years later in 1996<ref>Kabakov I., ''Ülo Soosteri piltidest: subjektiivseid märkmeid'', Tallinn: «Kunst» publishing house, 1996</ref> after emigrating to New York.

==Personal life==
Ülo Sooster married Lidia Serh in 1956. Their son, Tenno-Pent Sooster, was born in 1957 and would go on to become an artist.{{cn|date=August 2024}}

==Exhibitions==
* 1966 : Poland, XIX Festiwal Sztuk Plastycznych, Sopot – Poznań: Biura wystaw artystycznych.<ref>[http://www.artguide.com/ru/articles/second-russian-avant-garde.html Второй русский авангард, или Визуальная культура эпохи холодной войны//АртГид, 2013] (Russian).</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{Authority control (arts)}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sooster, Ulo}}
[[Category:1924 births]]
[[Category:1970 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Hiiumaa Parish]]
[[Category:20th-century Estonian painters]]
[[Category:20th-century Estonian male artists]]
[[Category:Estonian modern painters]]
[[Category:Soviet painters]]
[[Category:Soviet nonconformist art]]
[[Category:Estonian people imprisoned in the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Burials at Metsakalmistu]]
[[Category:Karlag detainees]]

Ülo Sooster - Revision history

imported>Jevansen: Moving from Category:Modern painters to Category:Estonian modern painters using Cat-a-lot