Ülo Sooster was born the village of Ühtri on the Estonian island of Hiiumaa.
Sooster was sentenced to ten years of hard labour in the Karaganda camp.
[4] He returned to Estonia in 1956, but in 1957 he went to Moscow, and began intensive practice as non-conformist artist.
In 1962, he exhibited his work Eye in the Egg at the Moscow Manege exhibition that turned out to become a barrier for the official acceptance of modern art: the exhibitors received an angry reprimand from Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.
Sooster's widow narrated: "Khrushchev walked around the room, went up to Yulo's blue painting and asked: "What is this?"