Karl Pärsimägi

"Self-Portrait with Hat" (1931)

Karl Pärsimägi (* April 28 ^{. Jul} / 11. May  1902 ^greg. On the farm in the village of Sika Oe, today community Antsla , Võru County / Estonia ; † 27. July 1942 in concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau ) was an Estonian painter .

life and work

Karl Pärsimägi attended the school in Kraavi near his home village. As a teenager he took part in the Estonian War of Independence against Soviet Russia and was awarded a medal.

Then Pärsimägi studied from 1919 to 1926 and from 1932 to 1935 at the recently opened art school of the Estonian artists' association Pallas in Tartu . He first learned painting from Konrad Mägi , later from Nikolai Triik and Ado Vabbe . In the spring and summer of 1923 he took part in a study trip to Germany under the direction of Anton Starkopf . In the same year he presented his first modernist work.

From 1937 Pärsimägi settled as a freelance artist in Paris . Because of the richness of color and the versatility of his art, he was also called the " Matisse of Tartu ".

With the German occupation of France in 1940, Pärsimägi's existence was threatened; But he stayed in the country and also supported those persecuted by the Nazi regime. He may have worked as a courier for the Resistance . A return to Estonia was impossible for him because of the Soviet occupation of the Baltic States , and he did not prepare to go into exile. In September 1941, Pärsimägi was arrested by the German National Socialists in Paris as an alleged Jew , deported to Auschwitz via the Drancy assembly camp and murdered the following year.

literature

• Heie Treier: Karl Pärsimägi . Tallinn: Eesti Kunstiakadeemia 2003

Web links

• Life and Work (English)
• Müstiline Karl Pärsimägi (culture magazine Sirp , May 2, 2003)