Valdur-Olev Ohakas (December 26, 1925 – February 16, 1998) was an

Estonian Estonian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Estonia, a country in the Baltic region in northern Europe * Estonians, people from Estonia, or of Estonian descent * Estonian language * Estonian cuisine * Estonian culture See also

painter.

Early life and education

Valdur Ohakas was born in

Tallinn Tallinn is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Estonia, most populous city of Estonia. Situated on a Tallinn Bay, bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, it has a population of (as of 2025) and ...

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

, the son of Johannes Ohakas (1900–1979) and Agathe Elise Ohakas (née Kirnmann, 1903–1997). The artist

Raoul Kernumees Raoul Kernumees (until 1936 Raoul Kirnmann; October 25, 1905 – June 25, 1990) was an Estonian printmaker and painter. Early life and education Kernumees was born in Udeva, the son of Juhan Kernumees (né Kirnmann, 1862–?) and Anna Maria Ki ...

was his maternal uncle. He attended Tallinn Primary School No. 21, Tallinn Middle School No. 2, Tallinn Trade School, and Tallinn Evening Technical School. From 1942 to 1943, he studied at the Tallinn School of Fine and Applied Arts under Eerik Haamer and Johannes Greenberg. From 1943 to 1944, he was mobilized into the German army. From 1944 to 1948, he studied at the Tartu State Art Institute under Johannes Võerahansu and Elmar Kits, but he did not graduate from the school because in 1949 he was arrested with a group of art students and sent to the

Vorkuta Gulag The Vorkuta Corrective Labor Camp (), commonly known as Vorkutlag (Воркутлаг), was a major Gulag labor camp in the Soviet Union located in Vorkuta, Komi Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. ...

in the

Karaganda Region Karaganda Region (; ) is a region of Kazakhstan. Its capital is Karaganda. The region borders Akmola and Pavlodar Region to the north, Abai Region to the east, Jetisu, Almaty, and Zhambyl Regions to the south, and Kostanay and Ulytau regio ...

of the

Kazakh SSR The Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, also known as Soviet Kazakhstan, the Kazakh SSR, KSSR, or simply Kazakhstan, was one of the transcontinental constituent republics of the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1936 to 1991. Located in northern Centr ...

. He was released in 1956.

Career

Ohakas started showing his works at exhibitions in 1946, and in 1959 he became a member of the Artists Union of the Estonian SSR. Ohakas participated in the renewal of Estonian art in the 1960s, and he was in close contact with

Ülo Sooster Ülo Ilmar Sooster (October 17, 1924 in Ühtri, Käina Parish – October 25, 1970 in Moscow) was an Estonian nonconformist painter. Ülo Sooster was born the village of Ühtri on the Estonian island of Hiiumaa. He was the son of Johanne ...

and many artists from Tartu and Tallinn. The height of Ohakas's work was the 1960s and 1970s, when romantic landscapes were central to his versatile creations.

Works

Ohakas's work in the late 1950s was characterized by the "harsh style" () (e.g., ''

Pirita Pirita is one of the eight administrative districts () of Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. Pirita occupies a relatively large area, but compared to other districts of Tallinn its population of 17,592 (as of 1 November 2014) is relatively small. ...

'', 1959). At the beginning of the 1960s, he mainly cultivated still lifes, in which color and the light–dark contrast become increasingly important (e.g., ''Natüürmort kaladega'' 'Still Life with Fish', 1965; ''Vanad asjad'' 'Old Things', 1968). Starting with the end of the 1960s, his geometrizing style often reached the point of being abstract or surreal (e.g., ''Natüürmort kannuga'' 'Still Life with a Pitcher', 1970; ''Linn'' 'City', 1973; ''Antiik'' 'Antiquity', 1974). In the 1960s and 1970s, romantic landscape visions took center stage (e.g., ''Mütoloogiline maastik'' 'Mythological Landscape', 1971; ''Järvede org sügisel'' 'Valley of Lakes in Autumn', 1978; ''Tee'' 'Road', 1982).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ohakas, Valdur 1927 births 1998 deaths 20th-century Estonian painters Artists from Tallinn