Tímarit Þjóðræknisfélags Íslendinga - 01.01.1962, Page 73

EINAR JÓNSSON
55
years in Copenhagen, during which
time Jónsson completed the “Wave
of the Ages” and produced, on com-
mission, monuments to Jónas Hall-
grímsson (the Icelandic poet d. 1845)
and to Iceland’s first settler Ingólfur
Arnarson (after the original made
in Rome). During these years he
showed “Man and Woman” at Das
Kiinstlerhaus in Vienna and parti-
cipated in a Danish exhibition in
London.8
Jónsson’s efforts at earning a liv-
ing by his art in Denmark proved
abortive. A year’s stay in Berlin,
1909-1910, met with the same fail-
ure; so he returned to Copenhagen.
The following year he was called
to Iceland and commissioned to do
a memorial to Jón Sigurðsson
(leader in Iceland’s struggle for in-
dependence, d. 1879), which now
stands in a public square in front
of the parliament building in Reyk-
javík. After completing the statue
the same year, Jónsson went back
to Copenhagen, where, with the
exception of short stays in London
and Lund, he lived until 1914.
In 1908 Jónsson offered to give his
nation all the works he had already
produced on the condition that the
Icelandic government move them to
Iceland and provide a museum for
them. The offer was accepted, and in
1914 he moved to Iceland. Con-
struction of the museum, however,
was not begun until 1916, when
20,000 krónur had been secured by
voluntary contributions by indi-
viduals in addition to the 10,000
krónur granted earlier by the Al-
thing.9
8. Ibid., p. 237.
9. Ibid., p. 275-76.
In 1917 Jónsson married Miss
Anna M. M. Jorgensen of Copen-
hagen. That same year they went to
the United States, where he was
commissioned to make a statue of
Þorfinn Karlsefni, the first white
settler in America, which now stands
in Fairmont Park, Philadelphia.10
At the end of the war, he went
to Denmark to oversee the trans-
portation of his works to Iceland.
Unfortunately some of them had
been damaged in storage—some
beyond repair, but what could be
salvaged was moved to Iceland in
1920. By that time the museum had
been completed, although it was
not opened to the public until 1923.
There the artist lived and worked,
except for occasional soujourns
abroad, until his death on October
22, 1954. Upon his death, his na-
tion inherited all the works pre-
served in his museum, that is, al-
most all the works he ever created.
The visitor to Jónsson’s museum
is immediately struck by the di-
verse nature of his works: They in-
clude statues, reliefs, busts, archi-
tectural designs, sketches, a n d
paintings, although the artist’s
greatness lies primarily in his
sculptures. Apart from his many
monuments, some of which are
mentioned above, he often chose
his motifs from Icelandic folklore,
mythology, and the Bible. In the
first group belong, e.g., “Outlaws”
(1898-1900), “Dawn” (1897-1906),
and “The Spell Broken” (1916-
1918); in the second, “Ýmir and
Auðhumla” (1907-1909), “The Birth
of Psyche” (1915-1918), and “Thor
Wrestling with Age” (1939-1940);
10. Einar Jinsson, p. 12.