Gustav Raud (1902–1968)

Artists from Southern Estonia, many of whom were from Võru County (Jaan Vahtra, Karl Pärsimägi, Juhan Raudsepp, and others), set the tone in Estonian art until the end of the Second World War. Gustav Raud was also from Võru County. He had to repeatedly discontinue his studies at the Pallas Art School due to a lack of money, yet he still managed to graduate from that school. He participated actively in exhibitions both in Estonia and abroad at the end of the 1930s and he also set about organising cultural life at the start of the 1940s, which brought repressions. Raud nevertheless continued working, focusing on portraits, still-lifes, and landscape views that were completed primarily in Southern Estonia. A large retrospective exhibition was held in 1962, which also turned out to be his last.