Kastellaanimaja gallery opens exhibition of Mait Summatavet’s early work

Kastellaanimaja gallery has opened an exhibition of drawings and paintings of Tallinn’s Old Town made by designer Mait Summatavet in the early 1960s, ERR reports.

The exhibition, titled “…Student Summatavet in the Old Town, Early 1960s,” offers a look at the early work of one of Estonia’s most highly regarded interior architects and designers.

“The exhibition provides an opportunity to look back at a time when Summatavet was still an art student and his later creative path was only taking shape,” said Tarmo Piirmets, chairman of the board of the Estonian Association of Interior Architects.

“The Old Town is above all a place where the young artist observed and learned. The drawings and paintings preserve Tallinn as it was then, including its streets, buildings, details and moods, as well as the young creator’s search for ways to understand form, space, light and material,” Piirmets said.

By the mid-1960s, the work of Bruno Tomberg, Väino Tamm, Vello Asi and other designers of the postwar generation had laid the foundation for Estonia’s strong reputation as a design country. Mait Summatavet also emerged alongside them, quickly developing his distinctive style and broad creative range.

“The Kastellaanimaja gallery exhibition takes viewers back to a time before major interiors, exhibition designs and design projects, when a young student looked at his native city and learned to draw and paint it for himself,” Piirmets said.

The exhibition is open from September 11 to October 10, 2026, at Kastellaanimaja gallery.