Karin Luts. Travel Images

08.03.2025–28.09.2025

A new exhibition opening on 8 March in the Tartu Art Museum takes a look at paintings, sketches and diaries by Karin Luts in order to discover the importance of travel in the artist’s life and œuvre.

As with most of us, travel was an essential part of life for the painter and printmaker Karin Luts. It served as a form of education and creative stimulation, as well as a way of escaping the tedium of everyday life. She often stayed abroad for extended periods of time, which allowed her to immerse herself more deeply in the local milieu. In keeping with tradition, she captured her impressions in sketchbooks and sometimes even on canvas. Luts did not consider these travel images to be serious art, likening them more to the work of a photographer, with the only difference being that she did her work by hand. Yet, these numerous works, executed in a variety of media, form an important part of her body of work. She chose to depict various places, capturing her most immediate emotions. Her sketches are characterised by a humorous expressiveness, her gouaches by a romantic poise, and her watercolours of southern seas and Venetian canals by a particular delectability. Some sights stuck in the artist’s mind and later became the starting points for the creation of masterpieces.

Karin Luts was born in 1904 in Riidaja, Viljandi County, and died in 1993 in Stockholm. She graduated from the Pallas Art School in 1928, and went on to become one of the most outstanding Estonian female artists of the early 20th century. In 1944, she fled to Sweden with her husband, the Slavic philologist Peeter Arumaa.

Karin Luts bequeathed the artworks in her possession in Sweden to the Tartu Art Museum. The first exhibition displaying works from the artist’s bequest opened in 2004. The current exhibition includes 76 works that are being shown to the public for the first time. Helping to provide deeper insight into Luts’s personality will be the artist’s diaries, currently housed in the collections of the Estonian Cultural History Archives.

Curator: Mare Joonsalu
Exhibition and graphic designc: Angelika Schneider
Coordinator: Rene Kriisa

Exhibition team: Indrek Aavik, Richard Adang, Nele Ambos, Indrek Grigor, Joanna Hoffmann, Margus Joonsalu, Viktor Kiss, Annegret Kriisa, Katrin Lõoke, Jaanika Peebo, Anti Saar, Kristel Sibul, Ago Teedema

Exhibition views
Photos: Madis Palm