I had big exhibition in the American Business Center in Tallinn, Estonia.
These were big rooms and at the exhibition there were about one hundred works of art. Suddenly I noticed a bearded man looking at my works very carefully. I went closer and started to talk and then I had this big wish to make a portrait of him. I was fascinated with what I saw: talking hands, tobacco-yellow colored bearded, quick overall looking warm eyes and lighting life-energy inside of him. We settled a time for posing. He agreed with pleasure.
At that day I painted four different pastel portraits of him. All in the same size, but in different technical approaches. In addition to research the old man, I wanted to research myself, to find out how many old men there are in myself when I look at him. I was satisfied with all four paintings and one of them I decided to send to a portrait competition.
Later when I received the news about being selected as a finalist I realized, I had no contact of that man. I was asked to talk about that portrait on national radio, I described how the portrait was done and also asked if someone knew about that old man and would get in touch with me. On the same night I had a phone call and I found out the old man’s name. Jüri Lumet, George in English. So, I found him again and I found out more about him. He had been a director of a big machine factory before he retired.
© 2009 Aapo Pukk. Reproduction and usage of images in print and as a part of website template by written permission only. Phone 310-750-6098.
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