Mikhail Grobman
Ülo Sooster and Mikhail Grobman. They were contemporaries and representatives of “unofficial, underground art.” They met regularly, spoke at length, and closely followed each other’s work.
Blog
Calendar for 2026
According to the Chinese zodiac, 2026 is the Year of the Horse. We have decided to publish a calendar in which each month is adorned with a drawing by Ülo Sooster, connected—one way or another—to the horse.
Surprise from Sweden
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A competition for the design of a monument to Ülo Sooster
The Sooster Foundation has announced a competition for the design of a monument to Ülo Sooster in the Kärdla educational quarter, opposite the school the artist attended. Details via the link.
«Soosteri Koolkond»
October—the month of Ülo Sooster’s birth and death—has drawn to a close. On 25 October of this year, the premiere of “Sooster School” took place in Tartu at Uus Teater. Our applause to director Ivar Põllo and the entire creative team.
"And one should think about death too".
From a letter by director Andrei Tarkovsky dated November 4, 1970.
Bold, life-affirming, and extraordinarily talented...
“Political persecution did not deprive Sooster of either his wit or his joy…
Venus Forbidden
“Before me lies the open spread of pages 18–19 from the magazine Znanie - Sila (Knowledge is Power), issue no. 2, 1968, featuring the article Earth and Venus. Beneath the title is a drawing by Ülo Sooster—its incompleteness of narrative and the absence of the artist’s characteristic imagery provo
Portrait of a mother
A charming blue-eyed brunette, she loved singing in the choir. But there was less and less time for it. Family, two children, a vast farmstead. And then – the war…
One of the last etchings
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,
Collectible porcelain. "Landscape with eyes"
Ülo Sooster died in 1970 at the age of 46. The life and creative path of his friends, artists of the Moscow underground, continued. They moved to Europe and America, became famous, and explored different artistic directions.
From the memoirs of director Andrei Khrzhanovsky:
“Several canvases were being worked on simultaneously, and by visiting the studio regularly, I became a witness to their growth, as if they were children whose development is marked not only by outward signs but also by some inner transformations: zones of radiance shifted, accents, instrumentati