Almost 30 years ago, in 1996, in New York, the artist Leonid Lamm recalled Ülo Sooster. They were united by friendship, creativity, and a shared studio... But this time Leonid Lamm remembered a specific event — the exhibition of Ülo Sooster’s works, which by some miracle was permitted, prepared, and held in Moscow in 1979 at the Gallery of the Union of Graphic Artists on Malaya Gruzinskaya Street.

"To mark the opening of the exhibition, 50 copies of one of Ülo Sooster’s last etchings were printed. On each print I wrote by hand: 'In memory of the Exhibition of Ülo Sooster. August 31 – September 18, 1979.' These commemorative copies of the etching we distributed and sent to Ülo’s friends. At the exhibition opening, there were many admirers of the remarkable artist. Artists and art critics came from Estonia. And Mari Pill gave a very interesting lecture about Ülo Sooster. It was our shared celebration, our shared victory over the machine of Soviet bureaucracy.

When leaving for the West in 1982, I donated, in memory of my friend Ülo Sooster, my illustrations to the short novels of Enn Vetemaa to the Art Museum in Tartu...

It is wonderful that most of Ülo Sooster’s works have been preserved and have found their home and care in his now independent homeland."

Leonid Lamm. New York. 1996