The abstract drawing by Elmar Kits is dated 1954. Kits only showed his abstract work publicly in 1966, when he held a solo exhibition at Tartu Art House. Along with other exhibitions the same year, this exhibition is considered to be one of the most remarkable events in Estonian art history, and ‘the manifestation of modern art and the top event in the 1960s’. The solo exhibition of work by Kits led to a turn in Estonian art life: abstract art, which was criticised before, became more accepted.

Nevertheless, this abstract drawing in the collection of Indrek Hirv is not well known, and it therefore remains unacknowledged. Kits drew it casually as a gift for his friend Louis Pavel, Hirv’s father, during a drinking party in 1954. It is drawn in brown pencil, and the shape of a bottle is recognisable in the picture. The words tänane õhtu. ukrainskii (tonight. ukrainskii) are also written on the drawing, and the date 3 February 1954.

Indrek Hirv considers this work to be a masterpiece in his collection in the context of cultural opposition, because it contrasted clearly with the prevailing Socialist Realism, and anticipated the exhibition that took place over ten years later, and the art reforms in the 1960s in general.

He has also offered this drawing to exhibitions, but it has nevertheless not so far been seen by a wider audience.