On the 20th of April the Pallas Art Society opens an exhibition Joy and Sorrow those Twin Brothers. Eduard Rüga in Exile in three halls of the Tartu City Museum
The organizers of the exhibition survey the work of Eduard Rüga (1903 – 1997), a graduate of the Pallas Art School in Tartu in 1939, born in Germany and the U.S.A. These nearly 100 works from the period of 1946 – 1992 in the collections of the Pallas Art Society, the Art Museum of Estonia, the Under and Tuglas Literary Centre, the Tartu Art Museum, and six private art collectors make it possible to get an impressive overview of Rüga’s achievement both as a painter and as a master of relief printing graphic art.
Rüga’s last bigger exhibition took place in 2004 at the Adamson Eric Museum in Tallinn. After that, a great number of his important works have reached the Estonian museums and private collections.
Eduard Rüga is one of the pioneers of Estonian multi-coloured relief printing who won recognition already in war-time Estonia. In 1944. he was compelled to flee from his home country, first to Germany from where he later succeeded in emigrating to the U. S. A. In-depth acquaintance with western art in post war Germany and later in the U. S. A. made Rüga one of the most colour sensitive Estonian painters and graphic artists of all times, both in the concrete and the abstract manner.
Rüga was an honorary member of the Pallas Art Society and donation of his works became the basis of the Society’s art collection.
The exhibition has been put together by Enn Lillemets and designed by Inga Heamägi. It remains open until the 19th of August. This is the 20th exhibition born of the collaboration of the Pallas Art Society and the Tartu City Museum which started in 2001.