Matti Milius was born on November 10, 1945 in Tartu, Kastani street 21, as the second child of Voldemar and Linda Milius. Father was working as a driving teacher and mother was a hairdresser. Matti has a twoyear elder brother, Guido.

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As a child, he was quiet and introverted. He liked older people's company. He got interested in collecting stamps and exlibrises as a schoolboy in 1962. His classmate's mother Helena Kulpa-Ivask (whose father Udo Ivask was an exlibrises' researcher) gave Matti an exlibris every time Matti got good results in studies.

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After graduating from gymnasium in 1967, he studied librarianship in Viljandi Culture Academy. Since 1969, Milius worked in several village libraries near Tartu.

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1972 – 1992, he was working as a nightguard in Tartu and at the same time he was active as a typewriter. On his Olivetti-typewriter, he replicated a lot of valuable literature, some of which were forbidden in the Soviet Union. His role as an underground literature distributer was significant. He also composed two underground anti-Soviet literature almanacs titled “Karjamaa” (“Pasture”).

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He also started actively collecting art. In 1966, he met art collector Mart Lepp and got interested in older – before 1940 – Estonian prints. He added some famous artworks by Ado Vabbe, Hando Mugasto and Arkadio Laigo to his collection.

 

 In 1968, he met scientist and filmmaker Peeter Urbla. After this meeting, focus of collecting changed permanently to contemporary art.

 

Milius started organising exhibitions in 1968. He curated almost 100 exhibitions during his lifetime: in Tartu, Elva, Tõravere, Kuressaare, Tallinn, Pärnu, Saint Petersburg, Riga, Vilnius, Helsinki, Imatra.

 

In 1974, he got interested in Latvian art and start actively collecting in Riga. Maris Argalis' s (1954 – 2008) artwork was the first Latvian print in his collection. Later, Latvians became a significant part of the collection: Ilmars Blumbergs, Maija Tabaka, Antonia Lutere just to name some  In 1975, he got his first Lithuanian artwork – Algimantas Kuras`s – to his collection. Later he acquired a lot of famous Lithuanian artworks, just to name some names: Vilutis Mikalojus, Vytautas Valius, Daniliauskas Jonas and others.

 

Matti was also active in Saint Petersburg (Leningrad), Moscow and Kiev. In 1975, he got Ernst Neizvestny`s (1925 – 2016) print “Untitled” (1960). Eighties took Matti to Armenia. He had lot of Armenian artworks also – Robert Elibekjan`s, Akop Akopjan`s, Hamlet Oganesjan`s. Estonian independency since 1991 opened the door to Finland. Matti's collecting area spread to Scandinavia. He added works of Finnish painters and printmakers to his collection – Olavi Heino`s, Matti Kurki `s, Jorma Hautala`s, Juhani Järvinen`s and others.

 

In 2004, Matti got the honorary title “BEST MANAGER OF THE YEAR 2003” from Tartu City Government as a reward for exhibitions of Latvian art he organised in autumn 2003. When receiving the reward on the stage of  “Vanemuise” theatre, Matti noted in his speech that in the Soviet time, he used to get invitations to KBG after organising some exhibitions and warnings from KGB not to be so active, but in independent Estonia, he got a reward for the same activity. Public aplauded with tears in their eyes.

 

Matti was also active as a happening-artist and declaimed poems especially written for him. His poet name was Moguchi (The Great). Moguchi's poetry is socially critical. Parts of his lyrics have masculine, erotic content.

 

Mostly, Matti got artworks as gifts from the artists. He was some kind of a gifted gift-receiver. He became friends with artists easily and inspired them to gift a work. Artist Alexander Reichstein has said that he found Matti so interesting as a person that he wanted to give him a work that was in some way unusual. Every artist had their own reasons to gift works to Matti's collection. It was a certain kind of honour to be represented in Matti Milius`s collection. Some works Matti also paid for, as normal. Sometimes, Matti wagered on his famous beard to get an artwork.

 

Matti would easily fall in love and was engaged several times, but he was never married and never had a family of his own. From 2014, he got engaged to his lady from eighties – Renna Ali. The wedding was planned to 2017.

 

Matti Milius died five months after a fire accident, on June 3, 2015. He was buried in Paulus cemetery in Tartu, in his family's burial place. Two of his relatives and three hundred friends of him participated in the funeral.

In  autumn 2015 there were several memorial exhibition: in Fahle gallery (Meelis Tammemägi) and Art Space (Jaak Visnap) in Tallinn, in Tartu Artschool, in Viljandi Kondas`s artcenter and autumn 2016 in Lahti Finland and Tartu Art Museum (Ruuda Liisa Malin).

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