User:Cshim23/Eduard Rüga

Eduard Rüga (August 16 1903 Sangaste Parish– October 28 1997 Elmwood Park, New Jersey, USA) Estonian Painter and Graphic Artist.

Biography
Eduard Rüga was born in Sangaste Parish, Tiidu cattle manor. He studied in Tagulas, Urvastes, and Võru schools. In 1928 he became a student of Jaan Vahtra 's preparatory class at the Pallas School of Art. Studies were interrupted for a few years due to financial reasons. The young artist continued to work independently and participated in the exhibition of young artists in 1934 in Võru. In the same year he returned to Pallas, this time to Nikolai Triigi's painting studio. During this time, he also studied graphics with Arkadio Laigo. The artist's handwriting was so different from that of his predecessors that Laigo, the head of the graphics studio, refused to sign his graduation certificate, claiming that Rüga was not ready to finish. The conflict was resolved and Rüga graduated with one of Pallas's largest classes along with Lepo Mikko, Elmar Kitse, Erich Pehapi and others (nine artists total). Upon graduation, Rüga was awarded an annual domestic scholarship by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

The artist lived in the Viira schoolhouse in Pärnu County, where his wife was a teacher.In 1944 Rüga and his family emigrated to Germany and from there to the United States in 1949. Eduard Rüga was also active in organizing Estonian cultural life in exile. He was the treasurer and chairman of the Estonian Center for Visual Artists .Under his leadership, exhibitions were organized at the Estonian House in New York and in several museums and galleries.

Eduard Rüga was a member of the Liivika Student Association.

The artist died in Elmwood Park, New Jersey, USA, and his ashes were buried on August 8, 2000 in Tartu Raadi Vana-Jaani Cemetery.

Works
Rüga was the only Pallas student whose works were selected for a traveling exhibition of Estonian art in Italy, Hungary, Poland, and Belgium, organized by the Estonian Cultural Endowment Foundation in 1939. The Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp and the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome bought copies of the artist's works "Cape Altja" (1938) and "Old Irboska" (1938). His first solo exhibition in Estonia took place in 1988 at the Võrumaa Museum.

Eduard Rüga's main field was woodcuts and engraving, which was one of the most popular graphic techniques at the time. The highlight of the collection can be considered "Man and Nature of Southern Estonia" (1942–1943), the design of which won the prize of the Education Directorate. When putting together the collection, Eduard Rüga created rare multicolored letterpress graphics in Estonia at that time. His favorite subjects were the landscapes and people of Võrumaa.

In America, the artist found himself in a whole new environment, both socially and artistically. At the beginning of the American period, Rüga practiced Monotyping. In 1952, he continued to experiment with Linocut. The recurring motifs were fish and birds. In the 1960s, an abstract representation became predominant. He performed a number of almost abstract figural compositions. In the 1960s, Rüga continued to paint. He was an artist who over the years did not become attached to the nature he once found, but sought variety. In addition to paintings and graphics, his creative heritage includes Illustrations and Bookplates.