Like dozens of other artists, Aarne Miikmaa, who came from Hiiumaa, began his studies in art under the instruction of Ants Laikmaa. Later he studied art history and philosophy at the University of Tartu, and at the same time also studied painting at the Pallas Art School. Portraits and landscape paintings are in the foreground in his oeuvre, which remained relatively small due to his untimely death.