Konrad Magi, *Norwegian Landscape with Pine*, 1908-1910, Estonian Art Museum

“Between 1908 and 1910, one of the most experimental artists in Norway was an artist who spoke not a single word of Norwegian. He lived in relative isolation and seemed to have barely scraped by, as if consistently on the brink of death. When he first ran out of money—as he often did—he survived by eating blueberries in the woods surrounding [nowday Oslo] … By January 1909, he admitted ‘It is hard to know whether or not I am dead, since I certainly am not alive.’”

(excerpt from a biography by Bart Purshaw)

Konrad Magi, *Norwegian Landscape*, 1908-1910

Konrad Mägi (1878-1925, Estonia) was one of the first modernist painters in Estonia, a brilliant colourist, and an extraordinarily versatile portraitist and landscape artist. Working over the course of his career in diverse styles including art nouveau and expressionism, he created over 400 works.

Konrad Magi, 1908, *Portrait of a Woman*

Reading Mägi’s biography creates a picture of a man perpetually running from (or to) himself but never seeming to quite get there in his mind.

Aged 11, Mägi moved from his birth town to Tartu, Estonia’s second largest city, as an apprentice joiner. There he developed an interest in the arts, driven in part by his employer’s requirement that he take drawing classes.

He later studied decorative art and design at the The Stieglitz Art School in St. Petersburg where he also participated in the Revolution of 1905 before leaving for Finland in 1906. In Finland he made his first paintings while translating Estonia folk songs to pay for his passage in 1907 to Paris.

Konrad Magi, 2017, *Southern Estonian Landscape*

From Paris he soon moved to Norway - where he remained for several years due to lack of funds to return. Painting extensively and in dire poverty he concentrated mainly on landscapes - places of beauty that for him also offered the possibility of exalted experiences that transcended everyday life.

Konrad Magi, Meditation, 1915-1916, Estonian Art Museum

Upon his return to Estonia in 1910, Mägi’s paintings were displayed at art exhibitions in Tartu and Tallinn, becoming immensely popular - although he was not met with similar success in Paris, where he went shortly thereafter.

Konrad Magi, Saaremaa Landscape, 1913, Estonian Art Museum

Returning to Estonia in 1913, he concentrated on landscapes and portraiture, founding the Pallas Art School there in 2019. Yet becoming dissatisfied with the conditions in his country, he left for Italy shortly thereafter. Mägi retuned to Estonia again several years later due to failing heath (years of starvation took their toll) and remained there until his death in 1925.

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