Three years ago, the 90-year-old artist Boris Zhutovsky passed away. Tenno Sooster, Ülo Sooster’s son, called him “Boba,” as did other people close to him.

Boris Zhutovsky connected people and eras not only through his memory and his gifts as an artist and memoirist. He always wanted to think freely; he was hungry for life, for people, for new impressions. And he was generous - he loved giving gifts.

From Tenno’s recollections, about conversations in Boba’s studio:

- Boba, you said that you and my father used to cook a compound for paintings together, but yours is pliable, while my father’s is hard as stone?

- Well, we were searching - each of us was cooking his own “porridge”… Ülo was searching for the eternal - he saw himself far ahead, as a classic… He wanted time to have no power over it. In the end, Lida suggested the compound to him. She was from the theatre - a set designer; something out of theatrical secrets…

So Boba said, pulling out a board:

- Here! Ülo made this in ’67, put it on the radiator to dry and forgot about it. The board lay behind the radiator for 50 YEARS! We were renovating and found it…

In the photos: that very work (1967, 37x52 cm), and the resonant “Composition,” (1965, 33×48 cm).