The Forest of Sculptures

Since 14th January 2015 the museum displays an unconventional exhibition of plaster sculptures. The sculptures were last displayed in this amount during past century.

“The idea of the Forest of Sculptures started from a practical need. The sculpture repository is undergoing renovations and we had to move the sculptures. Therefore, we decided to give visitors the opportunity to see the Art Museum in a way it used to look about 100 years ago. Back then the exposition was very dense, nearly everything from the museum`s collections was displayed,” explains collection holder Jaanika Anderson.

A collection of plaster casts is an unusual form of a museum as they are not original objects. The plaster casts are copies of ancient originals. In the second half of the 19^th century these kinds of collections became popular and nearly all European universities had their own. With the decline of the importance of exploring ancient cultures plaster cast collections went out of fashion during 20^th century and a lot of them were destroyed. The University of Tartu Art Museum is proud to still have its collection preserved.