Endel H\u00e4rm (1923\u20131996)\nEndel H\u00e4rm was born on 7 September 1923, in Viljandi. He comes from a family of\nprominent Viljandi cultural figures \u2013 his father, Oskar H\u00e4rm, was a long-time manager of the\nUgala Theatre; his father\u2019s brother, August H\u00e4rm, was an orchestra member and cellist; and\nhis mother\u2019s brother, Voldemar Metsam\u00e4rt, was a translator and poet.<\/p>\n
During World War II, Endel H\u00e4rm was mobilised into the German army, but ended up in\nFinland as a \u2018Finnish boy\u2019 (soomepoisid in Estonian, a moniker for Estonian men who chose\nto fight the Red Army in Finnish uniforms rather than in German ones during World War II)\nand in 1943 he was sent to Kehra training camp. In September 1944 H\u00e4rm was captured and\nimprisoned by the Russians; he was released in 1946. After his release from prison, Endel\nH\u00e4rm went to study at the Tallinn State Institute of Applied Arts, as he was not accepted into\nother institutions of higher education because of his past. Although he graduated from the\ninstitute as a theatre designer, he did not go to work in the theatre, instead working for many\nyears as a commercial graphic designer together with his wife Lilian. In addition to designing\nadvertising posters and packaging, Endel H\u00e4rm illustrated a few children\u2019s books and did\nsome landscape painting. In 1974, H\u00e4rm and his wife moved from Tallinn to Viljandi.<\/p>\n
The painting style and approach of Endel H\u00e4rm are realistic. Wandering in the countryside\nwith his wife, he captured landscapes, old farmhouses, and flowers in various techniques.\nLilian recalled that Endel could paint very accurately and that the era, when colour\nphotography was not yet very advanced, suited him (Vallikivi, 2020). Endel H\u00e4rm died on 19\nMay 1996, in Viljandi.<\/p>\n
The author considers the painting Vana Viljandi (Old Viljandi) to be a sentimental\nreminiscence, as it features a bathhouse and steam mill built at the turn of the 19th and 20th\ncenturies. The steam mill has since disappeared from the townscape. The mill was owned by\nthe Estonian industrialist and prominent businessman Aleksander August Rosenberg\n(1832\u20131899), who installed the town\u2019s first telephone line and owned a brewery and a brick\nfactory (Vallikivi, 2020).<\/p>\n