Exhibitions

Hitherto dominated by (Baltic) German women belonging to the local elite, figurative art was taken up by Estonian women only a hundred years ago, after the Estonian independence, when the number of women enrolled in state art schools and private courses began to grow. And although the percentage of women in the artistic community kept growing vigorously throughout the interbellum, Estonian female artists came out with their first group exhibition only at the very end of this period —
in 1939, eighty-five years ago from today.

The term ‘synoptic’ originates from the Greek word σύνοψις (synopsis), which can be translated as ‘whole view’. The exhibition at hand approaches the work of Estonian female artists as a whole, trying to highlight various shifts and developments by juxtaposing artworks of different artists from different eras. On the one hand, the aim is to find out whether and how the modes of visual representation have changed in the last one hundred years. On the other hand, it is also to see how female artists of different periods have perceived themselves, the society and everything in between.

The exhibition is based on collections of Estonian museums and archives of currently active artists.