RICHARD UUTMAA. Archipelago motif, watercolour, signed and dated.

Image dimensions 37 x 52 cm. Frame dimensions 55 x 70 cm.

This 1966 watercolour by Richard Uutmaa is an excellent example of his late, watercolour-marked period, in which he depicted the Estonian coastal landscape with great virtuosity and sensitivity — a recurring motif throughout his oeuvre.

The painting depicts a typical North Estonian fishing village by the sea, likely inspired by Altjas or similar coastal environments, where Uutmaa grew up. He uses here the fleeting qualities of watercolor to achieve an impressionistic play of light and subtle movement. Uutmaa lets the colors flow but at the same time skillfully controls them with graphic lines and dark silhouettes, creating a clear structure in the midst of the painterly flow.

Richard Uutmaa (1905—1977) was one of Estonia's most prominent landscape painters of the 20th century and an important representative of the development of Estonian painting during and after his time at the Pallas School of Art. He was born in Altja, a small fishing village on the coast of Northern Estonia, which marked his entire artistic expression.

Uutmaa first trained with Nikolai Triik at the Pallas Art School in Tartu, graduating in 1935. His early works bear distinct features of the lyrical realism of the Pallas school, but he soon developed a painterly language of his own, particularly focused on seascapes, marine motifs and coastal folk life. His paintings are characterized by a romantic mood, often with soft outlines and interflowing color fields, where man and nature merge into one whole.

During the 1940s, he developed his style further, incorporating stronger realist and tonal elements. After the war, he adapted to the demands of Soviet cultural policy, but at the same time managed to preserve his personal colorism and freedom of composition. In the 1960s he adopted a freer and more expansive watercolour technique, where he experimented with light, texture and colour in a virtuoso manner.