SUMMARY

It has been 27 years since the first exhibition of contemporary Estonian printmaking, where the Wiiralt Prizes were first awarded. On this occasion, we gratefully remember Henry Radevall and Harry Männil, who supported the event in its early days, as well as the National Library of Estonia, Tallinn Culture and Sports Department, the Estonian Artists’ Association and the Association of Estonian Printmakers, who continue to support and organise the event, not forgetting Loit Jõekalda’s role as a persistent and patient motivator.

Some time ago, the state of Estonian printmaking seemed rather bleak, but lately the outlook appears brighter. The exhibition received submissions from 95 artists, and 55 of them were selected by the jury, presenting 78 works in total. For those familiar with the field, this may seem sufficient, but for the sake of representativeness – and to show the full potential of Estonian printmaking – a broader selection might have been more fitting. Hopefully, the renovated National Library building will offer larger exhibition spaces where works by past Wiiralt Prize laureates can be displayed, if not more grandly, then at least more systematically. In the ARS Project Space, the exhibition designer’s main concern was simply fitting everything in.

At this ninth exhibition, the main prize went to Vello Vinn for his prints “Vision Towers I and III” (2024). According to the original rules of the Wiiralt Prize, a young artist award was intended to accompany the main or lifetime achievement award, which is why several strong printmakers from the 1960s–1970s generation who might have deserved it never received the prize at the time. Vello Vinn has been considered before, and he has now finally received his well-deserved recognition.

 

The encouragement prize went to Maria Erikson for her installation “Autofictions” (2025), which involves a fairly extensive list of techniques and materials. The artist appears to have a personal relationship with all of them. The result is interesting, though perhaps not particularly promising for the future development of printmaking.

Another nominee, Helen Tago, has long been drawn to giving printmaking a spatial dimension. She has folded, in various ways, the drypoint relief prints from her series “Fields of Becoming I–V” (2025). In larger formats, such folded and three-dimensional prints could easily function as design elements, as demonstrated by Mari Prekup’s linocut-covered polyhedron “From Wood to Stone and the Devil Washes the Spoons” (2022), whose sharp asymmetrical form suits the expressive darkness of linocut.

It was a pleasure to see previous Wiiralt Prize laureates, some of whom (Vive Tolli, Avo Keerend, Peeter Ulas and Silvi Liiva) are no longer with us, while others (Ave Teeääre and Kertu Ehala) have withdrawn from active participation in the printmaking scene. Yet others – Evi Tihemets, Marje Üksine, Gudrun Heamägi, Lauri Koppel, and among the young artist prize recipients Urmas Viik, Ülle Marks and Jüri Kass, along with Virge Jõekalda, Lembe Ruben, Mari Prekup, encouragement prize winners Inga Heamägi and Kadri Toom, and Raul Meel, who received the honorary award in 2022 – are still active. It must be said that this year’s competition exhibition stood up well in comparison with earlier laureates. It showed both quality and a forward-looking spirit of exploration.