Publications by Adamson-Eric Museum 2017

Gunnar Neeme. Under the Southern Cross: an Estonian Artist in Australia

Edited by Kersti Koll
Texts by Kersti Koll and Marin Laak
Grpahic design and image editing by Tiit Jürna
168 pp.
In Estonian and English, illustrated
Published by the Art Museum of Estonia – Adamson-Eric Museum
Tallinn 2018
ISBN 978-9949-485-84-0

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The book accompanies the exhibition Under the Southern Cross. Gunnar Neeme – an Estonian Artist in Australia at the Adamson-Eric Museum (15.06.–28.10.2018). Due to his exceptionally wide-ranging oeuvre, original versatile talent and boundless energy, the artist and writer Gunnar Neeme (1918–2005) was one of the most outstanding Estonian cultural figures in Australia. Gunnar Neeme left Estonia as a war refugee when he had not yet finished his studies in art. He became an artist in Australia. Working as a graphic designer all of his life, his own oeuvre is extremely broad and versatile. The artist used various techniques and various styles, from realism to abstractionism. Australian landscapes, colours, light and mythology are what Gunnar Neeme’s art is made of. With his works, he was in close contact with the art life of both Melbourne and Sydney and felt that he was part of it. The year 2018 marks the 100th anniversary of the Estonian Republic and is also the hundredth anniversary of the artist’s birth: he was born in Tartu in 1918. The fate and complicated choices of Gunnar Neeme, a man born just a couple of months after the Estonian Republic, clearly reflect the story of a small nation hurled into turbulence by the events of the Second World War.

In collaboration with the Estonian Literary Museum
With the support of the Ministry of Education and Research of the Republic of Estonia; The Compatriots Programme