Tiit Raid: Eau Claire Painter and Professor
Tiit Raid was primarily an acrylic painter leaving a long-lasting presence in Eau Claire. Raid was born in Tartu, Estonia in 1940. By 1949, Raid relocated to Preston, Minnesota, with his parents Eugen and Luule and younger brother Peep, in order to escape the occupation of their country and their five-year displacement in Germany during WWII.
Raid first showed interest in becoming an artist in the fifth grade, which led to seventy years of “made images,” as he called his artwork. He received his BFA and MFA from the University of Minnesota and later became an art professor at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire from 1967-2002. Raid made a profound impact on his students and taught them how to truly see and observe when creating art. Raid lived in Fall Creek, Wisconsin for 43 years with his wife Ann Swanson before moving to Eau Claire in 2017. He leaned into an abstract style for much of his career and found inspiration from the surrounding nature he encountered in his later years as an artist. Additionally, artists Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky were very influential to Raid’s artwork and process.
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Raid passed in August 2022, at age 81, in his home studio in Eau Claire. His artistic accomplishments were significant, showcasing in galleries across the world; from Eau Claire, to New York, all the way back to his birth country in Estonia. More importantly, he left a positive long-standing impression on his students, friends, and community members. UW-Eau Claire’s permanent art collection is greatly enriched by Raid’s contributions.
In 2012, Raid gifted many pieces to the Permanent Art Collection here at UW-Eau Claire. The four ‘Maal Isale’ (Estonian for ‘painting for my father’) paintings represent different places Raid and his family lived. Based on Raid’s own instructions, it is suggested to “stand in front of each painting, then slowly walk to either side while continuing to observe.”
“The paintings are about the arrangement of mark, line, shape, color, and the appearance of these elements from different distances and angles, and do not refer to anything beyond what is seen” (Raid).
From a text focused series of paintings, “Remain New” and “The Lesson” have strong influences from Jiddu Krishnamurti’s writings. Deepak Chopra’s “Ageless body, Timeless Mind” is the main text within “Remain New”.
On the bottom portion of the topmost pink circle, Raid writes: “The biochemistry of the body is a product of awareness. Beliefs, thoughts, and emotions create the chemical reaction that upholds life in every cell. An aging cell is the end product of awareness that has forgotten how to remain new” (Chopra).
The 1991 version of “The Lesson” has text from “The Nature of Personal Reality” by Jane Roberts, however much of the text is covered by mark making, Native American symbols from cave drawings, and Raid’s own imagined images.
The piece was revisited in 1999, after Raid had read the poem “The Lesson” by Bruce Taylor. He incorporated the poem in Taylor’s handwriting on top of his previous work. According to Raid, “The poem floats darkly on the surface of the painting. Not to create mystery, but that is the way it seemed to work best.”
The Lesson.
Acrylic on wood. 1991, 1999.