[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-2189381596.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tEstonian artists are banding together and donating 124 artworks for a charity auction to raise emergency funds following a bank scam that defrauded the Estonian Artists\u2019 Association (EKL) of nearly \u20ac700,000 (about $816,400), reports local media outlet ERR News<\/em>. Artworks from the association\u2019s own collection, which include pieces by established Estonian artists, will also be added to the auction taking place from October 8\u201410 at ARS Art City, preceded by an exhibition opening on September 18.<\/p>\n \n\tOn May 15, the EKL learned that scammers, acting through their chief accountant,\u00a0defrauded\u00a0their Swedbank and SEB bank accounts of nearly $800,000 in government subsidies via an elaborate scheme disguised as salary payments. The funding had been earmarked for artist salaries, as well as operational support for galleries, among others.<\/p>\n \n\tThe upcoming sale aims to partially alleviate the financial loss incurred by one of Estonia\u2019s largest artist associations, numbering nearly 1,000 members and 18 \u201csub-associations,\u201d though estimated prices were not available at the time of writing. The EKL did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n \n\tWorks from the EKL\u2019s collection were selected by an expert commission and are meant to present a broad spectrum of Estonian art and culture today. They include pieces by J\u00fcri Arrak, Enn P\u00f5ldroos, Tiit P\u00e4\u00e4suke, Leonhard Lapin, J\u00fcri Kask, Olev Subbi and Mari Kurismaa, among others.<\/p>\n \n\tImportantly, a clause requires that all sold artworks be made available for public exhibition in the future, so that they \u201cwill not disappear from public view,\u201d EKL vice president T\u00fc\u00fcne\u2011Kristin Vaikla told EER News<\/em>. \u201cThis way, Estonia\u2019s art heritage remains accessible even after the sale,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cDifficulties have a unifying effect,\u201d observed local artist Jaanus Samma, speaking to reporters about his work coordinating the donations. \u201cArtists bring in works, ask how things are going, wish success and offer help. Preparing the auction has been very exciting; I have met many artists, visited studios and felt a sense of community.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tParticipating artists will receive 15 percent of proceeds from the sale of their donated works, and they will be paid 5 percent for any secondary sales from the EKL collection. Meanwhile, the EKL is currently preparing an online description of the artworks up for auction, including estimated prices.<\/p>\n \n\tEKL representatives also insisted that it is not selling its entire collection, nor will it consider parting at this time with certain works that specifically address the life of the artist who made them, according to ERR News.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/estonian-artists-donate-artworks-auction-following-816400-bank-scam-1234795628\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-2189381596.jpg?w=1024″] Estonian artists are banding together and donating 124 artworks for a charity auction to raise emergency funds following a bank scam that defrauded the Estonian Artists\u2019 Association (EKL) of nearly \u20ac700,000 (about $816,400), reports local media outlet ERR News. Artworks from the association\u2019s own collection, which include pieces by established Estonian artists, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2109776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2109776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2109776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2109776\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2109776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2109776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2109776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}