Posted on 19-20. in October 1960 by Voldemar Erm.
Childhood
I was born on April 22, 1889 in Harjumaa, Hageri parish, Kohila municipality, Rea village, Kärner farm, which according to the manor belonged to the Lohu community. My father, Rein Starkopf, came from Lelle in Pärnu County and was a potter by profession, who went to manors and farms to build kilns. Mother Anna Starkopf, born Willich, was from Käru. Mother had been in her first marriage with my father's brother Martinson (later Murdmaa), who bought the Kärner farm in Hageri. After his death, my mother married my father, who took over the Kärner farm. My mother had attended the Vändra parish school at the same time as Anton Jürgenstein, and I was also named Anton at baptism after this well-known writer. According to my home village, I wanted to take Rea as my surname during the bourgeois period, but it had already been entered in the defense register by someone before me, and therefore the name change was broken.
My father was an intelligent and hardworking person who was a supporter of all kinds of innovations. With his work as a potter and bricklayer, he was able to accumulate so much wealth that he bought several other farms in the village of Rea and merged them with the Kärner farm. The farm was eventually one of the largest in Harjumaa, kept in good condition, and it was said to be the first in the area to have glass windows. My father was elected mayor of Kohila many times. Mother Anna was a work-loving person with an open mind, who managed the farm work while her husband was working as a potter. He especially loved gardening, over 200 apple trees grew in the garden, but in 1941 in winter they were destroyed by frost. Mother was very loved in the neighborhood because of her warm heart, she went to help with births and visits with doctors. He consistently noted the weather, loved to sing and took part in theatre plays. The father was a cacophonist, unlike the mother, and the blue-eyed children were music lovers, while the dark-eyed ones were cacophonous, and I am one of the latter. The mother was "a little" religious, while the father occasionally quarreled with the priest. In addition to Estonian newspapers, the mother also ordered picture magazines "Niva" and "Die Woche" for the farm. Through the reproductions published in these, the children of the farm also got their first idea of works of art. It didn't arouse much affection in me, but my brother even made albums out of the cut out pictures.
There were many children in the farm. The mother had three sons from her first marriage, and seven children from her second marriage. I was the ninth child, only one sister was younger than me. Due to the large number of children, there were enough working hands in the family and I, as the nest egg, did not have much trouble with farm work and shepherding. The father wanted to educate all his sons to the best of his ability to help them succeed in the future.
Education
My schooling started at the age of 8, which was early for that time, as most children from the farms started school at the age of 10. After two years at the Lohu municipal school, I was transferred to the Järvakandi ministry school, where my half-brother Martinson was already the headmaster. The study of the ministry school lasted 5 years and there were 4 teachers. Teaching took place in Russian, which was difficult to master at first. At the Järvakandi school, I first encountered drawing, which I even started to like somewhat, the drawing teacher was Hion. When I finished school at the age of 15, I had to start thinking about learning a profession in order to earn my living in the future. At the arrangement of my father, I became a pupil of the municipality recorder for about half a year. But then I was "taken in" because the municipality clerk Damm was a big swindler and cheated with municipality taxes and bribes to increase his income. I told my friends about it and this ended my carreer there.
After that, I worked for some time as an assistant to Juki, the town recorder of the Aleksandri municipality of the Kose parish. I also lived in Aleksandri municipality during 1905 revolutionary events, when the meetings were held and the mansion of the manor was burned down. During the reaction that followed, the Cossacks rioted, and my father was imprisoned in Kohila. Then I went to Moscow for half a year to live with my half-brother, who was the governor of a manor near Moscow. When I returned to Estonia, I entered the Narusbek trade school in Tallinn, where I studied accounting and other practical subjects for two years. The drawing teacher there was someone from Latvia, and although I draw quite well, at that time I had not had much contact with visual arts. I was more attracted to the theater and friends from actors' families. Together with Sällik, I was an accomplice at some parties, we had a drink together with Altermann, Kurnim and Trilljärv were good acquaintances, Benno Hansen - then still a modest boy - was a good violin player.
In the school I got into trouble because of my impetuous nature. The trouble actually arose during the drawing exam, when they mad that I didn't have a drawing board with me. I jumped up and quit the school. Soon I was invited back to school, but I was irritated. The school had some nice teachers, for example the Polish Tomanski was loved by all the students. He was accused in 1905. participating in the revolution and was expelled from Tallinn. We traded the principal to be allowed to take pictures with Tomanski. That was the end of studying in Tallinn.
1909, despite not having a trade school diploma, I managed to get conditional admission to courses in St. Petersburg, where accounting, political economy and some legal disciplines were taught. The studies in St. Petersburg lasted two years and the plan was to become a decent economist. But fate wanted otherwise. At that time, many Estonians were already studying in art schools in St. Petersburg, and with some of them, for example, Jansen, Aren and Promet, I came into close contact and became interested in visual arts. Jansen once invited me to be his model, there I saw for the first time how painting really works. At Jansen's, during the breaks from posing, I started experimenting with plasticine modeling between my fingers and made small figures, men with various faces and various animals. As if by themselves, they succeeded quite well, so that acquaintances even praised them. I didn't have any serious idea to start doing art then, but the seed was probably planted.
Art interest and studies
During my stay in Hyvinkää sanatorium in Finland, my modeling exercises continued with plasticine. The figurines made here ended up with prof. Wennerberg and the sculptor Haapasalo, and they already suggested to think more seriously about art studies. Friends from St. Petersburg, especially Jansen and Promet, also started doing this. I became more familiar with the latter while summering in Narva-Jõesuu. Promet made pretty good watercolors at that time. In Narva-Jõesuu, I also got to know the family members of Lavrentsov, a rich businessman who is fond of art in Narva. Among them, one lady was strongly interested in art. He had also supported Jansen from an economic point of view.
At that time, the Commercial-Industrial Courses were merged with another educational institution, and I should have continued my studies at the corresponding institute and graduated from it. However, the interest in art had already started to sprout to such an extent that the question arose whether to continue studies in the commercial field or choose a new path and start studying sculpture. In this case, I was advised to travel to Munich, where several Estonians were already studying art. But the question of money was a delicate one, because it was difficult to explain to the family why I would suddenly stop my commercial studies and start treading empty air in the field of art. I myself was also plagued by doubts as to whether I had the prerequisites and talent for art studies. Financial worries were initially helped by the support of that lady from Narva, and in the fall of 1911 I traveled to Munich - initially only to test whether studying art is enjoyable and satisfying. And I didn't like it much at first, because the proper dressage of the Germans seemed too meticulous.
Munich
In Munich, I ended up studying drawing at the Ažbe art school, which was very popular at the time, because without drawing skills, an artist cannot work or advance. The Ažbe school was headed by the painter P. Weinhold, who was a good pedagogue with a solid methodology. In Germany, the Ažbe school was considered to be a free-spirited, good school where young artists from all over the world studied and trained. The school's teaching methodology was based on careful learning and realistic representation of nature (head, figure or nude). One device was kept in front with intermittent duration, but not more than a few weeks. In the morning the nude was drawn and painted, in the evening mostly portraits or nude sketches were drawn, for which the model only stood for a few minutes.
Even old bearded artists from several countries came to Ažbe to improve themselves and refresh their skills. I saw the "Simlicissimus" men drawing there, the Swiss men drew on a big blackboard and then wiped everything off. Among the Russians in Munich were Grabar, Merkurov, Gerassimov.
After the Ažbe school, I studied modeling at prof. H. Schwegerle. They worked there for 2-3 weeks on one act arrangement. Working on one model for a long time dulls the eyes. Portraits were practiced less often. Corrections were done once a week. We learned a lot of "working secrets" from more advanced fellow students, with whom there was to some extent a moment of mutual competition. In general, this is a very important incentive for studies. Schwegerle had 12-15 students. Studying theoretical subjects in Munich was completely voluntary - who studied and who didn't. Vabbe and I listened to Prof. Möllier's lectures on anatomy, which required quite a lot of concentration. Estonian art students in Munich at that time included A. Vabbe, J. Greenberg, E. Dörwald, E. Taska, L. Oskar, J. Otsman and A. Roosileht. The last one was there just for a short time. I had closer contact with A. Vabbe, who at first studied modeling just like me. Apart from the group, we Estonians had a common studio in Schwabing. Aleksander Tassa from Munich traveled from Paris, and after getting acquainted with the situation here and the study methods, began to agitate in favor of Paris, where there are much better opportunities to get to know contemporary modern art and improve oneself. His agitation had some effect, but not with everyone.
Paris
Under the influence of A. Tassa, in 1912 in the spring I traveled with him to Paris, where by that time a whole colony of Estonian art students had already formed. J. Koort, K. Mägi, A. Tassa, A. Uurits, J. Einsild were studying in Paris at that time, the writer F. Tuglas, the violinists E. Sõrmus and R. Tassa, the student F. Kull and others were also there. Later, a few more people from Munich followed. Karl and Paul Burman came to Paris from our homeland. Among the Russian artists, I had closer contact with Granovski, Bulakovsky, Orlova, Zadkin and Bakst, as well as with the political figure A. Lunacharsky, who was interested in art and literature, the writer I. Ehrenburg, and among the Finnish artists, T. Sallinen was part of my circle of acquaintances.
In Paris, I continued my sculpture studies at the "Acadèmie Russe", a free studio-style art educational institution, where besides the Russians, several Swedes also studied. The duration of the exposure of the models was also variable here: in the morning, the models posed for a longer time for the act, in the afternoon for a shorter time for the portrait. We practiced and worked independently without the constant control of the teacher, asking each other for advice and discussing the completed works together. Once a month or less often, sculptor Bourdelle and painter O. Friesz came to make corrections. However, the boys did not tolerate these correction visits too much and disappeared from the studio by that time. Going to the Louvre or some other museum was preferred to corrections. The goal of the studies was to learn to see the nature of the model independently and to convey what I saw sincerely. The model was a daily training tool. However, getting to know the works of the great masters of the past also gave a lot. There were excellent opportunities for this in Paris.
At the "Acadèmie Russe" the master of the studio was the old sculptor Bulakovsky, with whom I developed a very good relationship and from whom I could learn something, especially in the technical issues of creating a sculpture. Under his guidance, I also experimented with carving in marble. He was a student of Konenkov and later a collaborator of V. Mukhina. The weekly discussions of the students' works were exciting, where hands were not kept in front of the mouth. Open criticism also taught me to be critical of my work. After the Russian Academy, I went to practice drawing in the studios of La Grande Chaumière, which was a free educational institution where anyone could enter for a small fee to draw or paint a model.
1913 I spent the summer with A. Tassa and Fr. Tuglas and a couple of Finns studying in Paris (Y. Kilpinen and others) on the Åland Islands, where life was cheap and it was good to rest. Here I worked quite intensively on the drawings, so that there were enough of them to be presented in the "Societè artistique et litteraire russe", a society of literary and art enthusiasts founded by Russian refugees. Apart from art studies, literature evenings and parties were held at the Russian Academy, and I was also a member of the board of this academy. The drawings were also on display in 1913. at the "Noor-Eesti" art exhibition, and some of these drawings have been preserved at home to this day. A. Tassa, who had acquaintances with the members of the board of the association and the publishing house, enticed me to perform at the exhibition. In Åland, the issue of founding a future art association was also discussed, but because the artistic people were all scattered around the world, it was put on hold for the time being.