The  art  collection  of  Matti Milius

Raivo Kelomees

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Matti Milius (10 November 1945 – 3 June 2015)

Matti Milius died in June 2015, leaving behind, besides his art collection, vivid memories. There is no need to imagine him bigger or more fascinating than he was, unlike many people marginally involved in art. He was thoroughly analysed during his lifetime. As an object of interest of the public media space, he went through the whole gamut of stages, from the darling of the gutter press in the early 1990s to having a personal catalogue written about him as a respected art collector, where he was analysed by the best writers and thinkers: Jüri Ehlvest, Hasso Krull, Mihkel Mutt, Harry Liivrand, Priidu Beier, Ants Juske and Miervaldis Polis. In a later book dedicated to him on his 55th birthday, Milius in Word and Picture (Umara, 2000), the authors were Ervin Õunapuu, Viktor Niitsoo, Tarmo Teder, Eve Pärnaste, Jüri Arrak, Leonhard Lapin, Peeter Tulviste, Gleb Bogomolov, Andrei Monastõrski and others. Before all this, he was targeted by the KGB, but he managed to emerge untarnished, continuing to circulate and copy banned literature.

The main facts related to Milius are linked to the method of his collecting, i.e. asking, even begging, artists to donate pictures to his collection. The collection therefore mainly consists of donations that artists deemed necessary to give him. The St Petersburg artist Gleb Bogomolov called Milius Zeus’s nephew and wrote that after the sentence "ja hotchu chtobõ tõ padaril mne etu kartinu" ("I want you to donate this picture to me") his heart skipped a beat because as Milius was asking, he must have liked it. He donated three pictures.

Milius circulated in various groups of art people not only in Estonia, but throughout the Soviet Union: Moscow, St Petersburg, Riga, Yerevan and Kiev. He stunned people with his imposing figure and poor Russian, always associated with foreigners. He spread news and gossip. How a work by Ernst Neizvestny found its way into his collection is legendary. At some time in the mid-1970s Milius happened to visit Neizvestny’s studio and asked his usual question in broken Russian: "Võ ne mozhete podarit odno grafitcheski list?" "Shtoooo?!" (What!?!?) shouted the artist. Nevertheless, a Neisveztny drypoint of the 1960s with a dedication ended up in Matti’s art collection. While begging for artworks, he often referred to prominent names already in his collection. This made it easier for the artist to make a decision.

It also happened that artists sneaked in their second-rate stuff just to get rid of him, as he was not fully trusted. Leonhard Lapin once admitted that it took time for him to appreciate Milius. Milius’s collection now holds hundreds of Lapin’s works. Besides Lapin, Milius had excellent contacts with Jüri Arrak, Peeter Mudist and, among poets, he had the strongest and most contradictory relationship with Priidu Beier. Both Arrak and Mudist produced portraits of Milius. Arrak’s "Pan with a Maiden" (1981) and Mudist’s "Milius on a Hill" (1979) are iconic works, where Milius is presented playfully, as he generally was. "Pan with a Maiden" was purchased by the Art Fund and presented to the publishing house "Kunst" (Art), where it hung behind the editor-in-chief for years. Arrak was rumoured to have had some problems because of Milius’s picture, because Milius was a dissident in the Soviet era. The chairman of the Artists’ Association had to report to the party leaders on why such a person had been depicted and why the painting was shown at an exhibition.

Milius and the poet Priidu Beier were both keen on literature and did creative work together. Matti Mogući, a pen name, became their joint alter ego, under which they produced poems walking the borders of both moral and political tolerance. Mogući means “mighty” in Russian, appropriate for Milius, who shouted out these poems in poetry cellars or on television.

Milius’s art collection contains some true pearls that the biggest collections would covet. Nikita Aleksejev, Anatoli Belkin, Gleb Bogomolov, Valeri Gerlovin, Sven Gundlah, Francesco Infante, Vladimir Jankilevski, Ilja Kabakov, Lev Kropivnitski, Andrei Monastõrski, Ernst Neizvestny, Vladimir Ovchinnikov, Viktor Pivovarov, Dmitri Prigov, Konstantin Zvezdotshotov and others are Russian artists whose generosity to the art collector is quite astonishing. The same generosity was expressed by the Latvians Ilmars Blumbergs, Miervaldis Polis and Maia Tabaka, and the Ukrainians Igor and Svetlana Kopystjanski.

Many Estonian artists contributed to Milius as well, such as Jüri Arrak, Ulrik Amen, Leonhard Lapin, Lembit Lepp, Ado Lill, Kaljo Põllu and Aili Vint. Siim-Tanel Annus, Andrus Kasemaa, Jüri Kask, Mari Kurismaa, Raoul Kurvitz, Ilmar Malin, Raul Meel, Peeter Mudist, Valdur Ohakas, Sirje Runge, Paul Saar, Ülo Sooster, Tommy & Laurentsius, Jaan Toomik, Silver Vahtre, Tõnis Vint and others donated some of their best works.

Milius’s contacts with Finnish art were established through Leonhard Lapin and Jorma Hautala, and his collection was supplemented with works by Juhana Blomstedt, Lars Holmström, Matti Kurkki, Olavi Heino, Paul Osipow, Gunnar Pohjola, Markku Pääkönen and Jorma Hautala.

Besides assembling his extraordinary art collection, Matti Milius was remarkably successful in his dealings with people; he brought together the young and the old, the well-known and the unknown, the recognised and alternative artists of different nations, friends and foes.

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An interview with Aapo Pukk 

 1. Who is the subject in your prize-winning portrait?

My Subject is Matti Milius, an art collector from Estonia. He says that the most famous artist in his collection is Ilya Kabakov.  For him, it all began in the 7th grade, when the mother of one of his friends started to give him original “ex-librises” for good marks in the sciences. His active collecting of art goes back to 1968. The basis of his collection is the principle of “gifts”. He goes to the artist that he likes and asks him to give one of his works as a gift. By now, his collection has become so famous that people want to give their works to him. He is a legend not only in his home town Tartu, but in the whole of Estonia.

For the Soviet authorities, he was a difficult case. He seemed to declare that there were no restrictions in art. Art gives you freedom. He was ready to sacrifice himself, in order to draw attention to art. For instance, he once decided, in the name of art, to swim naked in the fountain in front of the Tartu University library, founded in 1632. The militsia, the Soviet police, took him away immediately. He is happy. He is like a big child. Emotional. Spontaneous. He can start stamping his feet, complaining in a high voice, if he does not get some picture that he really wants. He is full of tricks, but is utterly sincere, honest and very frank. He does not expect a certain behavior from anyone, being quite unpredictable himself, and all this gives others creative freedom. He is excellent material for every artist. He has, of course, asked me to give this portrait to him, but I have been in no hurry to do so.

2. How did you choose the subject for your prize-winning portrait?

I chose this Subject because the art collector himself wanted his portrait to be painted, as a kind of ceremonial portrait. Several years ago, I had made a pastel portrait of him. For this portrait, he promised to wear a tie, put on shoes and socks and go to the barber. Some people think that Mati is a freak, but he is just different. He says with all his being, that people do not have to be alike. The picture should have another title: "Matti Milius, The Man Who is Different". Saying it now, I realize that in the Forum of the Portrait Art, I should say "Another Man Who Is Different".

This was the rebellious freedom that looked back at me when I saw him. How could you control it? How can you paint a person who loves modernism? He could have wanted to see in me a realist painter in the style of "the back of the realism has been broken, now let us consider the eulogy in the modernist key". He didn't expect anything, as a result my painting is in its most natural form with my free approach and ideas about art, I have created more mischievously impressionist and more exact realistic paintings. But here both sides seem to be in balance.

I pulled myself together, it was not the usual process. I had no time, every moment spent with the painting had to be the right one. I had to know exactly what I was doing. I was facing the problem of how to improvise on the highest level of freedom, controlling at the same time the process with the most precise methods.

What are the methods? To move from the dark shades to the light ones, leaving the lightest places for the “dessert”. The brushstrokes can both paint and draw – you have to look for the same everywhere before you take a new colour to the canvas.  You have to paint the whole picture at once. A good whole could contain details but a good detail doesn't always show the whole. Black is not a colour, it has to be mixed. Don't repeat yourself in the course of creating one picture, every stroke can reach the end, every stage has to aim at being the final one. The subject of the portrait is always more important than your picture He/she goes on living after you have completed the portrait. Do not paint during sitting breaks, do not listen to anyone who happens to comment on your unfinished picture, and finish before others, too, realize that you have gone too far. And finally "Don't think too much, while painting."

We agreed about the time of the meeting and I had a week to prepare myself. I chose the canvas of the size that made it possible to depict him full-size. I wanted a simple background but full of art. I was faced with the question of how to create a work of art about art. I decided to have the background of simple unprimed canvas. Matti's character seemed to resemble it – unvarnished, rough, brittle, a little rumpled but still classically approachable. I settled him on my painter father's chair. My father had died just a year ago. Matti and my father got along well. Next to him is a small table, that belonged to my father, Aleksander Suuman, where you see a coffee cup.

The background has a broken look, full of ideas, taken from reality. There are no fantasies in this picture and no imagined brushstrokes. The composition was completed without any drawings, it was based on pure emotion that gradually acquired a more realistic form. The painting itself lasted3-4 hours on one day and as long on the second day.

The history of the picture has been quite interesting. On April 28 - May 16, 2005 the picture was exhibited in London, in the annual exhibition of the Royal Society of Portrait Art. It was chosen out of 800 portrait painting to be exhibited in the Mall Gallery. I was quite happy even then that two people from small Estonia were able to show themselves in such a distinguished place

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