Lögberg-Heimskringla - 15.12.1995, Síða 8

8 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • Föstudagur 15. desember 1995
Þórdís Siguröardóttir — Sculptor
“You’ve got to see Þórdís’s sculp-
tures. Nína Colwill said.
“Who?”
“Þórdís Alda Sigurðardóttir,” she
repeated. “Her work is wonderful.
Strong and thoughtful and witty. That
interested me. You don’t often have
people saying sculpture is witty. Big.
Heavy. A waste of the taxpayers’
money. But witty?
She sent me Þórdís’s portfolio. A
blue folder crammed with pho-
tographs and a brochure listing the
artist’s shows in Iceland and Europe.
Þórdís studied at The Reykjavík
School of Art, The Icelandic College
of Art and Craft and the Akademie
der Bildenden Kunste in Munchen,
Germany.
A lot of the sculpture had a femi-
nist bent but there was nothing heavy
handed, no victims and no propagan-
Sculptures by Þórdís A. Sigurðardóttir
On dispiay at the Gangskör Gaiiery, Amtmannsstíg 1, Reykjavík
Gimli
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da. Instead, the feminist point of view
sparkled like sunlight on the pieces.
Nína was right. The sculpture has a
definite point of view. It is serious,
successful art and, yet behind it
there’s the sense of intelligence and
irony.
I called Þórdís to ask if she’d come
to Victoria to give three Richard and
Margaret Beck lectures, one on her
own work and two on sculpture in
Iceland. She agreed but was so busy
with shows in Europe that it was two
years before she strode through the
door of Victoria airport.
The wait was worth it. Not only
did she prove to be as interesting as
her sculptures suggested but she
brought with her a lifetime’s knowl-
edge of Iceland’s most important art
form. Sculpture is so central to artistic
life in Iceland that there is a map
showing where the statues, outdoor
sculptures and galleries are located in
Reykjavík. These include, among oth-
ers, the Sigurjón Ólafsson Sculpture
Museum, the Ásmundur Sveinsson
Sculpture Museum, Kjarvalsstaðir,
and the Ásgrímur Jónsson Gallery.
When I think of the art work of
Iceland, the theatre, the music, the lit-
erature, I keep in perspective what is
and has been accomplished by com-
paring it to Vancouver Island. There
are far more people on Vancouver
Island. There is much more wealth.
Yet, there are no homes of famous
sculptors that have been turned into
museums. There is no rich endow-
ment of sculpture throughout the city.
In spite of only having a popula-
tion of one hundred and thirty-five
thousand, Reykjavík has The
Reykjavík Sculptors’ Society, which
was founded in 1972. Besides spon-
soring exhibitions it maintains a stu-
dio where members may work on
their art. This building contains a
forge and kilns and two large studios.
These studios are equipped with the
most important equipment that a
sculptor needs. The building also con-
tains a small three-room apartment.
Guests of the Sculptor’s Society can
stay there.
Iceland’s accomplishments in
sculpture are even more remarkable
when you discover that the first envi-
ronmental work of art was set up in
Reykjavík in 1875. Thirty-two years
went by before the memorial of poet
Jónas Hallgrímsson by Einar Jónsson
was unveiled. It was not until 1928
that the first independent work of art
was erected in Reykjavík. This was a
statue called Maternal Love by Nína
Sæmundsson.
The first lecture Þórdís gave was
both entertaining and informative. As
she told us about her background in
art, she showed a series of slides of
the Icelandic countryside. She said
that the landscape had a profound
impact on her art.
During the second half
of the lecture, as she
showed us pictures of
her own sculpture,
that became readily
apparent. In some cases, the landscape
was part of the sculpture itself. In one
unforgettable picture, she had sewn
together a huge rent in the earth’s sur-
face and stuck a huge needle in the
ground beside the bit of sewing.
For her next two lectures, Þórdís
divided her subject, “New Icelandic
Sculpture and its Historic Back-
ground” into two parts. First, she
dealt with Icelandic sculptors in the
first quarter of this century, then the
radical changes which took place in
the work of the most recent artists.
There are no ancient buildings in
Iceland. Reykjavík was little more
than a village a hundred years ago. It’s
not surprising that no Icelandic sculp-
ture is old unless we count historical
items like a statuette of the god Thor.
However, Þórdís pointed out that in
the Book of Settlements, it says that
Ingólfur Arnarson threw his high-seat
pillars overboard and vowed to make
his home at the place where they
washed ashore. High-seat pillars were
carved wooden pillars from the
thrones of Norse chieftains. These
were sculptures and could be said to
mark the beginning of Icelandic art in
the lives of Icelanders for these two
pillars determined the location of
Reykjavík.
The first Icelandic sculptor was
Einar Jónsson. He was born in 1874
and died in 1954. He studied in
Copenhagen in 1893. His work
includes religious expression symbol-
ism and Icelandic folk lore. He even-
tually gave all his art work to the
Icelandic nation and, in return, the
government had a combined studio
and gallery built for him. The house is
now a museum with a beautiful sculp-
ture garden.
Ásmundur Sveinsson was an inno-
vative artist. He made a bronze sculp-
ture called the Water Carrier in 1937.
It shows a woman struggling to carry
two heavy pails of water. That he
should have used ordinary people as
the subjects for his sculptures is
understandable because Icelanders
have no military heroes, instead sea-
men and workers and writers are seen
as heroic. He drew his themes from
Icelandic folklore and saga literature.
Two other important sculptors
were Sigurjón Ólafsson and Gerður
Helgadóttir. Sigurjón became a repre-
sentative of modernism in Iceland.
Gerður died when she was 47.
However, she managed to create a
large body of work. She studied in
Florence and Paris. She learned how
to work with glass and made many
Continued on page 9
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