Paul Ambur (Hamburg until 1936; 1904–1974) is one of the most thorough and influential researchers of Estonian artistic ex-libris. An exhibition was held in his memory at the Estonian SSR Museum of Ethnography in Tartu, and a catalogue entitled Eksliibris ja Paul Ambur [Ex-libris and Paul Ambur] was published. Heiki Lahi, the compiler of the catalogue, wrote about Ambur in the catalogue’s foreword: ‘He in particular has inspired most of our collectors and given them advice. Much the same thing also has to be said about ex-libris’ authors because along with periodicals on ex-libris from many countries, P. Ambur has been a source by which many men have familiarised themselves with the best works in this field from abroad.’

By now, the name of Paul Ambur has started sinking into oblivion, as has the ex-libris as an important part of the artistic culture of the interwar Republic of Estonia and of the subsequent era of Soviet rule. For this reason, the objective of this article is to demonstrate how large a role Paul Ambur played in the history of Estonian ex-libris and more broadly in art history and the history of culture. The article also shows how ex-libris are important visual sources for studying history, just as are paintings, photographs, architecture, and other such sources.

Discussion of ex-libris itself, as well as of Paul Ambur’s work in collecting, studying, and popularising ex-libris, should begin right now, when art historians and art scholars have started taking a greater interest in visual culture that has been created with the participation of artists. The visual culture under consideration is no longer spoken of only as ‘highbrow’ (elitist original art that persists in certain aesthetic categories). Historians have increasingly started recognising the capacity of visual sources in this kind of visual culture to speak of historical phenomena, which are difficult to capture by way of written sources.

This does not mean that the ex-libris as such cannot be considered a high-quality work of art. Of course it can, but not only so. ‘All ownership marks – ex-libris, monograms, initials, autographs, their shorter or longer variants, house marks, texts that include the names of a book’s user or of its donor and recipient…’ as Mare Luuk, Tiiu Reimo and Endel Valk-Falk have already briefly noted in 2002 in their study of the library of the Church of St. Olev, Tallinn’s oldest library – ‘speak of people who have successively possessed each book…’. At the same time, they are ‘marks of the “individual life story” of each concrete book’. In short – there is great potential in the study of ex-libris. Paul Ambur, a bibliophile and lover of the arts who was educated in philology and law, and who tirelessly stood for Estonian national high culture, is the figure with the support of whom this research base has to a great extent come into being.