Final Curator Tour at the Exhibition "Mart Org. An Artist with Three Homeland Shores"

The exhibitions "Mart Org. An Artist with Three Homeland Shores" and "Leida Org. Love Awakened Abroad" are open at the Pärnu Museum until February 2.

The final curator tour of the exhibitions will take place on Saturday, February 1 at 14:00 with Marian Grau. 
Participation with a museum ticket or museum card.

During the great wave of escape in 1944, an estimated 80,000 people left Estonia. Among them was the Oru family living in Pärnu, including nine-year-old Mart, who fled to Sweden via Kihnu in a fishing boat.

In Sweden, the little boy from Pärnu grew up to become a respected painter, who divided his life among the three countries of Estonia, Sweden, and Italy, and in his work, home and the sense of belonging were central themes. Oru's work can be approached biographically: he loved to paint subjects close to his heart and people dear to him, as well as nuances characteristic of different cultures.

Thanks to her son, Mart, his mother Leida Org, in her later years, discovered a love for art. In the sixties, Mart worked for a time as a freelance theater artist, and the colorful textile pieces left over from the costumes and sets he used inspired Leida, who was interested in crafts, to create large textile pictures using the applique technique. After the death of her husband and her children becoming independent, the opportunity arose to think about more than just earning money. Creating art gave life new meaning and purpose. She made all her panels by hand, having an exceptionally sharp eye for recognizing the characteristics of different fabric materials.

Both the mother and son's works have been purchased for the Swedish royal art collection, which, after the death of Gustav Adolf, moved to the Svenska Nationalmuseum collection. Four of Mart Oru's paintings have been purchased by the New York Seagram Collection. In their homeland, the works of Mart and Leida Oru are represented in the collections of the Estonian Art Museum. Now, thanks to the support of the National Archives and the Cultural Endowment, their great life’s work has almost entirely reached the Pärnu Museum.

Exhibition Curators: Marian Grau, Jan Leo Grau, Indrek Aija
Contributors to the exhibition: National Archive, Estonian Cultural Endowment, Mart Org, Henrik Fergin, Urve Sopp

See you at the museum!