Tiiu Kirsipuu

Biography

The sculpture “Two Wildes” stands in Tartu on Vallikraavi Street. The bronze writers Eduard Vilde and Oscar Wilde sit on one bench, and this subject brought Tiiu Kirsipuu her reputation. The work was made in 1999. In 2004, to mark Estonia’s accession to the European Union, the Republic of Estonia and the city of Tartu gave a copy to the Irish city of Galway.

Kirsipuu was born on 29 October 1957 in Tartu, then in the Estonian SSR. From 1965 to 1975 she attended Tartu Secondary School No. 2 (according to other data, it bears the name of Miina Härma), and in 1975–1976 Tallinn Secondary School No. 46. In 1983 she graduated in Tallinn from the Tallinn State Applied Art Institute of the Estonian SSR (now the Estonian Academy of Arts), majoring in sculpture. Her teachers are said to have included the sculptor Kalju Reitel.

After her studies she spent four years running a sculpture class at the Pioneers’ Palace (a state-run after-school centre for children) in Nõmme, a suburb of Tallinn. In 1987 she was admitted to the Estonian SSR Artists’ Union, and until 1993 she worked as a freelance artist. She then taught for ten years at the Estonian Academy of Arts (1993–2003), and from 2003 to 2019 in the sculpture department of Tallinn University. Since 2019 she has again worked independently in Tallinn.

She describes the range of her work broadly: from a coin a few centimetres across to a sculpture eight metres long. Some of her pieces are realistic and some abstract, in many materials, including snow and ice sculptures. She has taken part in international sculpture symposiums and competitions, and organised the Sagadi International Wood Sculpture Symposium. Her solo exhibitions have been held in Estonia, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, France, China, Russia and Belgium.

She made coins for the Bank of Estonia: a gold commemorative coin of 15.65 kroons (1999), a silver one for the anniversary of the University of Tartu (2001), a silver one for the centenary of the Estonia Theatre (2006) and a silver one for the Beijing Olympic Games (2008).

Public sculpture makes up most of the list. In 1999 she placed “Kaarnakivi” (Raven’s Stone), a memorial to the writer Juhan Jaik, in Rõuge. Then came the monument to the centenary of the Estonia Theatre in Tallinn (2006), the Johan Skytte monument on Toomemägi in Tartu (2006), a seated musician by the Vanemuine Concert Hall (2009) and the monument to Ants Sööt in Elva (2015). The bronze “The Eternal Student Juulius” (2008) stands in Tallinn by the Tallinn University of Technology. The “Girl with a Bird”, made as early as 1987, first stood in front of the student club and is now in the botanical garden of the University of Tartu. In the Old Town of Tallinn, in the garden of the Scottish Club, are her bronze bust of Robert Burns (2005), a bust of Sean Connery since January 2011 and, since 2015, a memorial bust of Admiral Edwyn Alexander-Sinclair. In 2020 a granite soldier was erected on the Petseri County War of Independence Monument, a copy of a work by Roman Haavamägi.

Since 2007 Kirsipuu has made portrait sculptures in the form of installations of figures from Estonian culture: Matti Milius, Tõnu Aav, Andres Dvinjaninov, Ülo Vilimaa, Mark Soosaar, Hardi Volmer, Leonhard Lapin, Peeter Laurits and others. In 2019, in Chengdu, Tallinn’s sister city, she completed the six-metre metal sculpture “Tallinn–Chengdu”. Her works for public spaces can also be found in Latvia, Austria and Changchun, China.

In 2010 she received the Anton Starkopf Fellowship and the Kristjan Raud Art Award for the exhibition of portrait sculptures “Role Play”, made with a technologically new solution. In 2019 she was awarded the Order of the White Star, Fourth Class. In 2012 Rein Raamat made a film about her, “Tiiu Kirsipuu. Code of Success”. I think this rendering of the title is more accurate than “Codex of Success”: in Estonian it is “edu kood”.

In 2025 the publisher Varrak brought out a monograph, “Skulptor Tiiu Kirsipuu. Illustreeritud kulgemine” (The Sculptor Tiiu Kirsipuu: An Illustrated Progression).