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Eestikeelsed artiklid

EDITORIAL

EPIFANIO RECOMMENDS

INTERVIEW WITH FRENCH PAINTER MICHEL CASTAIGNET
August Künnapu

PAINTINGS OF LUDMILLA SIIM

INTERVIEW WITH ROSE WYLIE
Harry Pye

MY FRIEND LEMBIT
Vilen Künnapu

INTERVIEW WITH FILMMAKER KERSTI UIBO
Jürgen-Kristoffer Korstnik

A mural by Epifanio Monarrez in Chicago

TEAM

My friend Lembit

Lembit Sarapuu

Lembit Sarapuu. Photo: Fred-Erik Kerner.

On 1 August, the brilliant Estonian painter Lembit Sarapuu celebrated his 90th birthday. It was all rather quiet. Maybe the entire media hoo-ha was devoted to jubilees of other great men. I thus had the idea of writing about Lembit myself. Our friendship began in 1978 when I had just returned from my first American trip that was organised by the Estonian Association of Architects. I was wearing a Los Angeles airport police uniform, and maybe for that reason Lembit came up to me in the Kuku Club. We started talking and the conversation has lasted for decades. Lembit has always swam against the current. Slightly in opposition with his surroundings, he is always alert, witty and just. The Kuku Club atmosphere has polished these qualities. There was always a drunk writer or critic, who out of boredom wanted to pick a quarrel with a fellow club member. However, they left Lembit alone – his quick mind, ready retort and military shrewdness were unbeatable qualities, leaving the attacker high and dry. The reputation as a naivist and the appearance of a village idiot concealed Lembit's spiritual wisdom and discipline, and there were no weapons against these.

For decades, our chats focused on painting. Other topics included politics, spirituality, Estonian life, people, building and architecture. We were both keen on essential issues, big themes, big images. We are of different age and appearance, but something is similar and causes affinity.

Sarapuu's critics have called him a naïve artist. And not only him. Remember the myth about Mozart and Salieri. The moderately talented Salieri was envious of Mozart and tried to malign him. Mozart, that big child, only laughed at Salieri and everything else too. This hurt Salieri especially badly. The world, alas, is swarming with Salieris who have joined forces to oppose the few Mozarts. The latter are mainly ignored and occasionally a more adequate Salieri is declared to be Mozart. Very seldom, a deal is done with a Mozart, and then he is brought out from the shadows. Sarapuu is also a Mozart. He is childish, talented and obstinate. And he has his own system how to protect himself from Salieris. He would not be ninety otherwise.

Lembit Sarapuu. Arhitektid

Lembit Sarapuu. The Architects.
Oil on canvas, 100 x 150 cm, 1995.

I have written quite a lot about Sarapuu over the years – essays, reviews, short stories. I know his stories by heart, but he can still surprise. I call him and listen to new tales, one more fantastic than the other. While studying at the Leningrad military school, Lembit often visited the Hermitage. He examined works by early Renaissance masters (Giotto, Fra Angelico), looked at the Spaniards (El Greco) and enjoyed the Impressionists. The army sergeants did not like him, but the generals did. One sergeant nicked Sarapuu's boot brush and Lembit was punished and sentenced to solitary confinement because of his dirty boots. Later he beat up the thief and got his brush back. From then on he kept the brush under his pillow. Lembit's nickname was „fascist“, and he genuinely enjoyed the military school. Just like everything military and the discipline. In art, too, he appreciates order and clarity. Maybe this singular structure in his pictures actually comes from the Leningrad military school? Still – Lembit's mother also painted in naivist style and her brother Jaan Siirak was an artist and interior designer. Lembit's father (who took part in the construction of the Tallinn city council building and the Kadriorg stadium) drew well too. Sarapuu liked order, but also expressionism, especially Vabbe. He said that my pictures contained something of Vabbe-style freedom. In the 1980s I became friendly with a number of Finnish artists, such as Carolus Enckell, Jorma Hautala, Jaakko Lintinen and others. I contributed to Finnish journals, also „Taide“. Enckell introduced me to the then fashionable Italian transavantgarde and German neo-expressionists, Wim Wenders, Italo Calvino and others. Carolus was the honorary editor of „Taide“ and its chief ideologue. I passed this knowledge on to Sarapuu and his painting became bolder. This was the time when he presented his men with pig's head, centaurs, tyrannosauruses and giants. The Finns wanted Sarapuu's exhibition in Helsinki and it took place in 1991 in the beautiful gallery of the Finnish Painters' Union. I was the exhibition curator and the Finns agreed to pay for a nice catalogue. I remember an incident from that exhibition. There was some spring holiday in Finland and the galleries closed for several days. Someone wanted to buy a Sarapuu painting, but the guard refused to open the gallery. The enraged Sarapuu promised to get an axe and smash the gallery's stained glass. The door was opened and Lembit got his painting and sold it.

Lembit Sarapuu. Ehituskunst ja tarbekunst

Lembit Sarapuu. Architecture and Applied Art.
Oil on canvas, 74 x 110 cm, 1986.

Another story concerns his painting titled „Kalevipoeg in Underworld“. The jury had chosen the painting to be displayed at the Spring Exhibition, but the exhibition designer Olev Subbi refused. He did not like the giant's semi-stiff phallus and he concealed the painting in a dark storage space of the art hall. Põldroos and Keskküla interfered and brought the painting out again. Juske, too, defended Sarapuu. Subbi and Lembit fell out on countless occasions.

Sarapuu totally immersed himself in his pictures. When he was painting „Kalevipoeg in Underworld“ Lembit went to a cave in the woods, overnighted there, drank only water and set fire to a dried-up fir tree. Lembit is fascinated with mythology. He says that it contains the truth of existence. He produced three pictures of our national hero Kalevipoeg who was a giant, not a man. He likes witches as well. Lembit says that an artist is a witch too, who leaves his body and flies. Above all, Sarapuu likes soldiers. „You must do your own thing and be a soldier“. At 90, Lembit works out and swims in the sea every day. His voice is alert, full of laughter and mobile. His stories have always bewitched me. I once wrote a number of short stories, which constituted a quintessence of Lembit's tales, jokes, sketches and my visions. Below are a few.

Lembit Sarapuu. Kalevipoeg allmaailmas

Lembit Sarapuu. Kalevipoeg in Underworld.
Oil on canvas, 150.5 x 200.5 cm, 1988.

Lembit Sarapuu. Keskustelu esivanemaga

Lembit Sarapuu. Conversation with Forefather.
Oil on canvas, 81 x 100 cm, 1996.

Baby Sarapuu

Sarapuu is a baby. He is lying in a small cot. His beard is tousled, his blue eyes staring at a point in the ceiling. His light-coloured hat has fallen to the floor. Baby Sarapuu is wearing a red beret. He closes one eye, but the other is even more intently examining the ceiling. Sarapuu climbs out of the cot and crawls to the door. There is a plaster statue of Apollo behind the door, which startles the baby. He tries to close the door, but Apollo forces his way in. Sarapuu lets out a yell, jumps up and flees, with the statue close at heels. For quite some time they circle the bed, then the stature gradually disappears. Sarapuu climbs to the windowsill and stands there like a statue. He sees enormous houses, a tree, a kiosk, a sandbox, a huge mountain, Brazil, Saturn, a woman. The woman is naked. She is returning from a well, holding a jug of water on her head. Sarapuu grabs his dummy and starts vigorously sucking on it. Phantoms, generals and gnomes arrive. Sarapuu grabs an axe and smashes the cot into ten pieces. He takes his rucksack, stuffs hand-grenades, an automatic pistol, orders, iron crosses, a straw hat, a book, a dead cat, and a slice of bread inside, and leaves. He steps into the lift and rides to the roof. A chopper is waiting there and its pilot courteously opens the door. A journey into subsequent time has started.

Social aspects

Sarapuu is immensely rich. He owns countless manor houses, coffee plantations, ships, rockets, diamond mines, racehorses, dogs, cars, yachts, aeroplanes, gold, chairs and tables. What he has most of all, however, are empty bottles. The fact that Sarapuu has no financial problems is good. This gives him a chance to paint away without a worry in the world, read books or simply undertake long healthy walks (in the woods, marshes, the back yards of slums, the old town, on Vääna beach, in Mustamäe and Õismäe).

Lembit Sarapuu

Lembit Sarapuu in Vääna-Jõesuu beach. 03/10/20.
Photo: Fred-Erik Kerner.

Sarapuu and ideas

Sarapuu has many ideas. They are like ready-made images that come from eternity, and will last forever. Sarapuu's head is like Plato's cave, where ideas and their shadows dance around. Sarapuu makes sketches of his ideas and then paints them on huge canvases. And when people come to see the pictures they feel as if they've already seen them somewhere. Nobody, however, can remember why, when or how. A picture seems to paint itself, and the truth in it becomes more real than reality.

VILEN KÜNNAPU
Architect and artist
instagram.com/vilenkunnapu 
vilenkunnapu.pri.ee