Arnold Vihvelin (1892 – 1962)

Arnold Vikhvelin was born into the family of an educated forester Hans Vikhvelin, who collected folk songs. His family had its own library, and his cousin was a portrait painter.
At the age of 13, he became an assistant in the pharmacy of Laius, at the same time he graduated from the Torma parish school. In 1906, he started working as a draftsman in Tartu, while taking drawing courses from Rudolf Julius von Mühlen, as well as visiting the workshop of Kristjan Raua.
Having no specialized education, he received second place in the Karlsruhe competition. In 1910 he entered the school of the St. Petersburg Society for the Encouragement of Arts thanks to the recommendation of Peter Barth, the inspector of the Tartu School. At the same time, he immediately got into the third grade.
Studied in the drawing class of Nikolay Samokish together with Jaan Vatra and Pit Aren.
In 1914 he entered the Higher Art School at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts in the class of Mate. Some of his paintings were included in the art magazine Ronk.
The main works of Arnold Vikhvelin are landscapes and salon portraits. He did a lot of illustration for magazines, wrote cartoons for satirical publications.
Many of his works are now kept in museums and private collections. But also online sale of paintings by an Estonian artist is presented in the Rios Art Gallery.