%20(1)-1.jpg){kind=logo}
28/6 -- 31/10/2026
The exhibition Long Pictures, Fine Threads. Fine Pictures, Long Threads places centre stage extraordinary embroidered worlds born of memory, everyday life and imagination.
At its heart is the work of Saaremaa-born Maria Peet (1913–2002), whose rare sensitivity and distinctive visual language provide the focal point around which works by other makers connected to her through place or subject matter are gathered.
The exhibition brings together more than two hundred works by Maria Peet, including embroidered pictures, textile wall hangings, paintings, knitted pieces and traditional Muhu cloth shoes known as pätid. In the second half of her life, she developed a distinctive technique of ‘painting with a needle’, embroidering scenes of childhood memories, Saaremaa landscapes, farm life, village events, people and animals onto pieces of fabric sewn together. The result is a richly detailed, diary-like sequence of images of twentieth-century Saaremaa, in which close observation, creative freedom and craftsmanship are interwoven into a singular visual world carrying layers of memory, place and a sense of self.
Alongside Maria Peet’s work, the exhibition presents the art of Harri Aer (1920–2005), who lived only a few kilometres away. Aer created both large and smaller narrative cross-stitched wall hangings in which the life and landscapes of Saaremaa are interwoven with folk tales, biblical stories, memories, history and fantasy. He embraced embroidery, traditionally regarded as a women’s domain, with confidence and ambition, thereby also challenging conventional gender roles. In works that took a considerable time to complete, the slow, stitch-by-stitch process became a powerful form of personal expression.
A small selection of works by Hilda Vilde (1921–2013) is also included. Her art is characterised by vivid colour, decorative richness and the free combination of different materials. She too did not follow prescribed patterns, but allowed each work to develop according to the inner logic of imagination, colour and material.
A further layer is added by several works whose makers are unknown or only partly identified, although the works themselves have survived. These too do not simply repeat inherited patterns, but transform them into something of their own. Thus long pictures emerge from fine threads, and fine pictures from long threads. One work leads into another, one visual language responds to the next, and around Maria Peet’s art there emerges a shared yet varied visual world shaped by many makers. Understanding embroidery and other craft techniques as vehicles of memory, identity and self-expression also brings into a new light those creators whose work has long remained at the margins of art history.
Kondase Centre extends its special thanks to all of Maria Peet’s relatives.
Curator and exhibition design: Mari Vallikivi
Graphic design: Riina Uisk
Installation: Kaarel Narro, Meelis Tammemägi, Jüri Pillisner
The works come from private collections, the Estonian Open Air Museum, and the Estonian National Museum
Acknowledgements: Malle Rajapu, Kertu Viikmaa, Kaarin Peet, Irena Tammik, Tuuli Tubin McGinley, Indrek Grigor, Mare Hunt, Merle Puusild, Kristel Kärner
The exhibition is supported by the Estonian Cultural Endowment
14 June to13 September 2026
"Flowers for the Dignified Mouse"
How we made the exhibition of dignified mice with Sulev
Small briefing by Tuuli Puhvel
To tell everything honestly, we could start with the fact that a few years ago, Edith Hermann, the head of the Pallas Library at the Estonian Academy of Arts, invited Sulev and me to make an exhibition of the Prima Vista art program about Tibet, where we had both visited at different times. Collages were created from Sulev´s photos and my painted backgrounds, but the main thing was that the collaboration was nice and fun, it left a beautiful memory and a slight ambition that we could try doing something together again.
Another important event was last fall, when Sulev´s partner Pille invited us - along with Sulev, me and my husband Eero - to her place to try out plant printing or botanical dyeing. After a short period of hiding, I realized that I had contracted a more serious infection, and now for two autumns I have been steaming potfuls of pretzels made from plant leaves, fabrics and plastic wrap over a fire.
Finally, we arrive at the exhibition that Sulev had agreed to hold at the Promenaadiviis cultural club a year ago in November 2025 in Tartu, and which we had no choice and plans but to do something together by the beginning of last September.
The idea of putting fabrics already printed with plants on frames and then starting to move forward step by step became a good idea. My plan was that the thematic and substantive side would be based on Sulev´s field of expertise: biology, scientific drawings, cells, laboratory mice. Plants are already the background.
First, we picked up watercolor pencils and drew and wrote drawings and text excerpts from Sulev´s University-time notes on the works. Then we did the same in some places using the diatype technique (drawing on a plate covered with printing ink while drawing on the other side of the fabric). In some places, we also simply painted with acrylic paints and used perforated stencils a little. Then, Sulev cut out three or four different mouse figures from linoleum and bravely and dignifiedly printed them on the works. The pictures with the labyrinth and swing have been printed using wooden blocks. And then it was especially fun when we found a rag bag and stuck pieces (or half an umbrella) onto the works and embroidered them or cottone thme to the canvas. Sulev turned out to be an incredibly good embroiderer, practicing the over-the-bar stitch and the fir-tree stitch with special skill.
This is how the exhibition was completed in two months. Not a single day was left over, but not a single day was missing either. The collaboration was creative and fun. When one of us ran out of ideas or a jacket, the other always had a plan in his pocket. Of course, we were supported by the strong background forces Pille and Eero. However, Daniel Keyes´ book Flowers for Algernon, which Sulev and I both read avidly, became a character in this entire creative story. It is the story of a mentally retarded man, Charlie Gordon, who undergoes an experiment to increase his intelligence. The prototype of the experiment is a laboratory mouse, Algernon, on whom the procedure works successfully. But the effect is temporary and the mouse soon dies. Finally, Charlie Gordon, who has become highly intelligent, also falls into a fading state, leaving as his last request to place flowers on the grave of Algernon the Mouse. This story had such an impact on the authors of the exhibition years later that it was decided to name the exhibition, paraphrasing the title of D. Keyes´ short story.
The next thing that happened was that Mare Hunt from Kondas Centre came to Tartu last
autumn to the opening of our exhibition at Promenaadi 5, and very nicely invited Sulev and I to have an exhibition with our works in Viljandi. We of course graciously accepted the invitation, we did some more work in 2026 and here we are now.
Tuuli Puhvel
Sulev Kuuse
12 February – 16 June 2026
A memorial exhibition of Rolan Paul Firnhaber (1936–2025)
Paul Firnhaber, a cultural anthropologist of American nationality with German roots, first came to Estonia in 2001 when he was invited to deliver a presentation at a scholarly conference organised by the Viljandi Culture Academy. Thereafter, he began spending his summers in Estonia and his winters in Colorado, USA. In 2010, at the age of 74, he settled permanently in the quiet town of Viljandi. On the second floor of a former smithy, he established Gallery Imagi, creating a space in which to share his art and ethnographic collection with fellow enthusiasts of history and art. Exhibition openings at the gallery became memorable occasions, characterised by a distinctive atmosphere of conviviality, music, and the enjoyment of art. Over time, Paul Firnhaber developed a wide circle of acquaintances, with visitors travelling to see him from across Estonia.
The Kondas Centre’s close and warm relationship with Paul Firnhaber began in 2008, when we organised the first exhibition of his photographs depicting old doors characteristic of Viljandi’s historic town centre. A few years later, after his permanent move from the United States to Viljandi, the collaboration deepened. Reflecting the Kondas Centre’s special interest in outsider art, visitors were introduced to works from Firnhaber’s collection, including woodcuts by the Brazilian folk artist José Francisco Borges, satirical intaglio prints by the Scottish barber John Kay, and exhibitions presenting the life and book illustrations of the French noblewoman Gyp. On the occasion of Paul Firnhaber’s 80th birthday, the Kondas Centre organised the museum-wide exhibition Finds, drawn from his collection, accompanied by a conference.
At the small memorial exhibition, open until 26 April, visitors may also view Vaiko Edrur’s evocative and, despite its title, life-affirming documentary film Dance of Death (2019).
In accordance with his wishes, Paul Firnhaber’s final resting place will be Viljandi Forest Cemetery.
Until 31th of May 2026
A Selection of Works from the Kondas Centre Collection
The Kondas Centre’s art collection consists of works united by a common denominator: outsider art. It currently comprises nearly one thousand works. Some have entered the museum’s collection as donations, but the greater part has been acquired from special care homes and day centres across Estonia.
The term outsider art requires continual clarification, and its meaning has shifted somewhat over time. Broadly speaking, it refers to creative work produced outside the conventional art system, often without academic training and independently of the institutions, norms and expectations of the art world. The term does not necessarily denote a specific style, but rather a position from which the work is made: one grounded in an inner compulsion, a personal imaginative world and an individual mode of expression, rather than in the rules or market logic of the professional art field.
After the Second World War, Jean Dubuffet further developed the concept of art brut, extending
it to include the work of creators operating on the margins of society. In 1972, Roger Cardinal popularised the English-language term Outsider Art, referring to art made outside the institutional art world.
Today, such work has become increasingly integrated into exhibitions and the art market, yet the term itself remains contested. Scholars have pointed out that, although problematic in some respects, it nevertheless helps us to understand works shaped by exceptional life experiences, mental states or alternative ways of interpreting the world, and which challenge our habitual understanding of both art and reality.
The earliest works in this exhibition are oil paintings by the naïve artist and farmer Hugo Sturm (1891–1979), created by the self-taught painter in old age during the 1970s. Sturm’s life was remarkable beyond the sphere of art: he fought in the Estonian War of Independence, was awarded the Cross of Liberty, and hid in the forest during the Second World War.
From a somewhat later period come the sculptures of the amateur artist and chess player
Arnold Vihmand (1912–2003). In the 1980s and 1990s he carved portraits of his family members from breeze blocks, creating works that feel at once archaic and deeply personal, like memorials. One of the Kondas Centre’s more recent discoveries is the work of Rein Aunistu (1959–2016). Having worked in a paper mill and on Soviet state farms, he began carving wooden figures in the 1990s while living in the forests of Viljandi County; his works were never publicly exhibited during his lifetime.
A major donation entered the collection in 2018 from the relatives of Heino Lillepuu (1937–2013).
His work offers a valuable overview of this self-taught artist’s socially critical series, as well as of cycles devoted to Estonian history and national heroes.
Most of the works in the Kondas Centre collection, however, have come from authors living in special care homes or active in day centres across Estonia, among them Diana Rahuba, Yevgeny Logvinenko, Tambet Tamm, Kristjan Lume and Ingrid Kivimeister. Fieldwork has also extended beyond Estonia: for example, the work of Edmunds Jaudzems was discovered in a care institution in Jelgava. He was born in Bauska and is known to have been drawing since 1991.
Following the exhibition of artists with special support needs working within Austria’s Lebenshilfe system, held at the Kondas Centre in 2023, the museum acquired works by five authors for its collection, including those of Christian Rebhan. The Kondas Centre collection also includes a work by the internationally renowned self-taught American artist Mose Tolliver (1919–2006), placing this local collection within a broader international context of outsider art and naïve art.