Jaan Elken painting sets auction record for living Estonian artist
Saturday 10th October 2026 on 10:45 in
Estonia
A painting by Jaan Elken sold for €205,000, setting a record for an auctioned work by a living Estonian artist. The Estonian Artists’ Association’s support auction raised €786,400 on Friday, ERR reported.
Elken’s “Driver’s Cabin” drew 126 bids, the most of any work in the auction. Art market expert Tiina Määrmann said no work by a living Estonian artist had previously reached such a high auction price.
Jüri Arrak’s “Discussion on Nature Conservation” was the second most expensive work, selling for €135,000. In the selection of graphics, photographs and drawings, all 56 works sold for a combined €225,400. Arrak’s 1985 work “Tiger” fetched the highest price in that selection, selling for €23,500 after starting at €1,600. It sold on Thursday, before a technical problem interrupted the auction. Evald Okas’s “Women with a Black Cat” received the most bids in that selection, with 49.
The paintings, sculptures and applied arts selection brought in €561,000. The auction received 1,400 bids on its first day, from both in-person and online buyers. Several works sold for multiples of their starting prices, said Reigo Kuivjõgi, a representative of Estonian Art Auctions and the auctioneer.
The auction continues on Saturday, October 10, at 3 p.m. at the ARS art campus in Tallinn and online. A further 80 works are due to go under the hammer, starting with Flo Kasearu’s “Tomorrow Is Wearing.”
The Estonian Artists’ Association and Estonian Art Auctions are holding the auction to help cover nearly €700,000 in losses caused by a scam. A total of 162 works from the association’s collection and recent donations are included in the sale.
Artists receive a share of the proceeds: authors of works from the association’s collection receive 5% of the hammer price, while artists who recently donated works receive 15%. Although the law reduces the resale royalty to 3% for higher-priced works, the association says it will pay artists from its collection 5% regardless of the hammer price.