Paul Kondas created around 50 paintings, with 26 of his best works currently on display at the Kondas Center in Viljandi. His paintings have now been brought together in a single room, giving a glimpse of what the schoolteacher-turned-artist's bachelor pad, which he also used as a studio, might have looked like during his lifetime.

"Of course, it's an interpretation, but we had some markers, though not the original paintings. However, his letters were very revealing regarding the furniture, what he wrote with, and where he painted. These are some of the things and knowledge that we have gathered here over the years," said Mari Vallikivi, art historian and director of the Kondas Center.

Vallikivi explained that one of the main reasons Kondas became famous was the publication of the Encyclopedia of Naïve Artists in London in 1984, which brought together a range of self-taught and original creators from around the world.

"He got in there thanks to [film director] Mark Soosar, who had introduced Kondas before in a film. His star journey began with an interaction with an art scholar in Moscow and getting into that book," said Vallikivi.

Paul Kondas, who was, by all accounts, eccentric by nature, was also not a modest man, and had even expressed the wish to open up a memorial room in his Tartu tänav apartment in Viljandi after his death. It is only now, 40 years after he passed away, that Kondas' wish has finally been fulfilled.

"He was really convinced of his own immortality, through his work. And not just through his paintings, but also through his literature. He wrote poetry, plays and short stories, which at the end of his life, for the last ten years, he tried to reprint in order to publish them. But unfortunately, they all remain unpublished," Vallikivi said.

The work of other Estonian outsider artists is also on display at the Kondas Center.

--

Follow ERR News on Facebook and Twitter and never miss an update!