Two works from the series From the Play World

In 1972 Evi Tihemets created a multi-coloured lithograph composed of two analogous parts, Decorative Composition. As the name suggests, it is a harmonious and simple collage, pleasing to the eye. It predicted the arrival of more complex compositions in the artist’s work a few years later.

Evi had already started making colour prints in various techniques at the end of the 1950s, but from the early 1960s she became known especially as a cultivator of colour lithography. She perceived the abundance of possibilities of a simple, abstract image and was not afraid of the amount of work, as long as there were excellent printmaking masters working alongside her, helping her with the execution of her works. So she started working on a new series, From the Play World.

This series was inspired by tangram, ancient Chinese puzzle game of geometric polygons obtained from a square cut into seven pieces, which are put together to form different shapes. A book published by DuMont in Cologne (1976) presents 1,600 different combinations. Inspired by the book, Evi Tihemets based her series on six original shapes and five colours, each of which had to be transferred to the picture from a different lithography stone, anticipating the tones created by the overlapping of colours and making up suitable stories for the images. The series took two years to finish and forms a unique chapter in the artist’s oeuvre. ¹See Evi Tihemets’ monograph written by Vappu Thurlow. Tallinn, 2022 p. 152