Composition with a Torso and Child's Hands

Anu Põder belongs to the history of Estonian art as one of the most original and controversial sculptors of the 1980s. While many of her contemporaries depicted social themes in the Soviet Union — agriculture, collective farm work, socialist living spaces — or created portraits of the Soviet elite and cast them in accessible bronze, Põder focused on the intimate side of the human soul and inner monologue, experimenting with mixed materials that were considered unusual in official sculpture.