Ullo Sooster was born in 1924 in Hijumaa, Estonia. As a young man he had the opportunity to study Estonian surrealism and European Surrealism. After the war he entered Tartu University, but his studies were interrupted by his arrest in 1949. He was sentenced to ten years in the labor camps, but was released in 1956 and rehabilitated.
In 1957 Sooster moved to Moscow and started working for the Znanie publishing house, illustrating science fiction. During these years he often met with Sobolev, Kabakov, and Yankilevsky. In these discussions the principles of a new artistic perspective were formulated in Russian alternative culture: a dynamic space-time relationship, and reflection as a form of the inner structure.
Sooster participated in the famous Manezh exhibition, which was visited by Khrushchev. He worked in film production and realized his ideas within the conventions of animation. His compositions continued to develop within the tradition of surrealism. Sooster died in Moscow in 1970.
