%20(1)-1.jpg){kind=logo}
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.
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.