"ÜLO SOOSTER"
EESTI KUNSTIMUUSEUM, TALLINN 2024
The aim of this book is neither to challenge he canon of Sooster nor to fracture the myth of Sooster, but to supplemen, expand and contemporise the present reception of this leading figure of Estonian 20th century art by offering new viewpoints on his oeuvre and introducing material that has thus far received little attention in writing and history.
From the article by Liisa Kaljula ans Elnara Taidre “Ülo Sooster Between Cultures, Identities and Media”
"The Angle of Discrepancy. Nonconformism Schools. Moscow. Leningrad. 1946 - 1991"
Author: Ekaterina Andreeva. Art - XXI Century. Moscow. 2023
"This is the second edition of the book by St. Petersburg art historian Ekaterina Andreeva. The book is dedicated to nonconformism, which emerged as an art of conscious resistance to total ideological control... By preserving the dream of freedom, nonconformism thus provided a significant part of Russian culture with the energy for development."
Ülo Sooster as an illistrator
Author – Vladimir Solonenko. Booksmart. Moscow. 2016
From 1957 to 1970, Ülo Sooster illustrated about 80 books for nine Moscow publishing houses. From 1963 to 1970, he designed works of popular science and science fiction literature for 20 issues of the magazine "Knowledge is Power," with his work featured on the magazine's covers.
The author analyzes the artist's relationships with publishing houses and editorial offices, as well as with writers and fellow artists. The book also examines Sooster's style and graphic techniques. It reproduces about 269 of his works.
Additionally, it includes a catalog of publications involving the artist and articles about Yulo Sooster written by his contemporaries.
I am from Krasina street
Author – Lidia Sooster. SBM-gallery publishing house. Moscow. 2009
"The courageous beauty of the story of the Jewish girl Lida from Moscow, who fell in love with the Estonian peasant boy Yulo behind the barbed wire of the Gulag and then, seemingly in freedom, fills the reader with a fierce helplessness. Could it really have been like that?...
I lived next to them. The second part of my life – already 'in freedom.' And I testify – it was like that. Lida told the truth. I bow to her memory and her courage."
Boris Zhutovsky, artist
"They were different, to say the least, Ülo and Lida. But there was still something familial in them—a nobility of pure quality. And that is their attitude towards work. And that is their attitude towards friends."
Irina Uvarova, art historian
"The 60s-70s… Notes on Unofficial Life in Moscow"
Author: Ilya Kabakov. New Literary Review. Moscow. 2008
World-renowned artist Ilya Kabakov wrote a book about the 1960s and 70s in the 1980s... He did not create a chronicle of unofficial art—he simply told stories about himself and his friends, analyzing what they did without doubting the importance and historical significance of their work.
My Sooster
Author – Lidia Sooster. Avenarius publishing house. Tallinn. 2000
"The book envelops the reader in the distant atmosphere of the 1950s and 1960s, where a modest existence was accompanied by great hopes and strong faith. The art of the second Russian avant-garde had long since moved from basements and attics to palaces. Yulo Sooster died in 1970. Lydia Sooster’s book is a second birth for the artist into that very future we talked so much about but which Sooster himself never had the chance to see."
Mikhail Grobman, artist
"Before us is one of the greatest love stories in the world, written in the first person."
Andrey Kovalev, critic
On Yulo Sooster’s Paintings: Subjective Notes
Author: Ilya Kabakov. Publisher: Kirjastus “Kunst”.Tallinn, 1996
World-renowned artist Ilya Kabakov wrote a book about the work of Ülo Sooster, whom he considered his friend and teacher. The author reflects on the words, experiences, and three most important metaphors of Ülo Sooster's art (fish, egg, tree), "through which he could depict the universal and mystical properties of the entire cosmos."
"Variants of Reflections"
Author: L. Bekhtereva. Published by the journal "A - Ya", 1980
"А - Я. A Journal of Unofficial Russian Art" was illegally prepared in the USSR and published in Paris from 1979 to 1986. The "А - Я" publishing house also released a book by L. Bekhtereva about unofficial art.
In the chapter "The Mirror of the Hall on Malaya Gruzinskaya" (pages 17-18), the 1979 memorial exhibition of Ülo Sooster is mentioned. "Art rose from death and emerged into another space."