OUR HISTORY
Estonia is a small nation within the global community. With a population of only 1.4 million, it has existed for over 9000 years on the Baltic Sea just south of Finland.
Toronto Estonian Virtual Art Gallery
This website is dedicated to all of the 80,000 (about 10% of the population) emigrés who had to leave their homeland of Estonia with their families between 1940-1944.
With over 5000 works of art. It has become difficult to find a suitable home for these rich historic artworks. The majority of the works on display and for sale on this website are from Mai Vomm Järve’s collection (predominantly works from the Society of Estonian Artists in Toronto-EKKT members).
Our Artists
Arthur Mihkelsoo
Articles in many periodicals, magazines and catalogues, in General Art History in 1937, EKKT’s 1996 Art Album, Estonian Art in Exile-Lexicon, 1980.
Velta Paparde
Velta Paparde was a worldly woman of many talents, born in Liepāja, Latvia 1909. She studied art with fellow Baltic women at the Art Academy of Latvia in Riga and developed her technique over decades of travel. She lost her first husband during the Soviet occupation of Latvia, then remarried later in life and settled her family in Toronto, […]
Joann Saarniit
Upon his arrival in Canada with the help of the Canadian Red Cross in Halifax, Nova Scotia he organized the first independent exhibition by an Estonian artist in Canada.
Ants Erik Vomm
Ants Vomm was born on June 4, 1931 in Tartu, Estonia. After his mother fled with son Ants and daughter Mai from the Soviet invasion, the family members were interned in an American camp for displaced persons for four years in Germany.