The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1956, Síða 33

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
31
construct their beautiful little nests at
the end of fernfronds or palm leaves.
These latter are birds of the forest
entirely and are rather duller in
plumage than the humming birds of
the open country. There are 17 dif-
ferent humming birds in Trinidad
and most of them are found in and
around Springhill.”
The Springhill Estate is one at
which a traveller could spend many
days with pleasure and profit, be he
an ornithologist, a naturalist, a
pleasure seeker or just someone curious
enough to see a modern example of
the Icelandic vikings who travelled so
far and wide and sought to make
homes for themselves wherever thev
went, and fit themselves into their
surroundings.
NORTH DAKOTA ARTISTS
The achievements of four North
Dakota Icelanders, a sculptor and three
painters, are recorded in the publi-
cation, “North Dakota Artists”, pre-
pared by the late Paul E. Barr, former
head of the Art Department of the
University of North Dakota.
The sculptor is the late Jon Magnus
Jonsson of Upham, North Dakota,
born there in 1893. After schooling at
Fargo, N. D., he began art studies at
the Minneapolis School of Art and
through the years had risen to emin-
ence as a sculptor in the United States.
He was teacher of sculpture at Cran-
brook Academy of Art prior to his
death in 1947.
Mr. Barr’s record notes the birth in
1893 in Winnipeg of Emile Walters,
his early education at Gardar, N. D.,
and first showing of paintings at Grand
Forks, his rise to fame from there on
and exhibition of his works in leading
museums of North America, Europe,
Asia and Australia.
It should be noted that since the
publication of “North Dakota Art-
ists”, Mr. Walters has been commis-
sioned by the United States govern-
ment to do paintings of historical sign-
ificance, specifically with reference to
the emigration of the first Icelanders
to North America more than 600 years
ago.
Kristinn P. Armann, the second art-
ist noted, was born near Gardar,
N. D., in 1889, and is now living at San
Louis Obispo, California, where he is
painting extensively. His first art train-
ing was ait Gustavus Adolphus College
from which he went to the Chicago Art
Institute. Mr. Armann is a sculptor
as well and his works have been widely
exhibited in the northern United
States.
The fourth North Dakota Icelandic
artist, a painter, is Thorarinn Snow-
field, who was born and raised in that
State and has lived for many years in
Cavalier. He studied at the Min-
neapolis Art School and later studied
in New York with the Art Students’
League and in the National Academy
of Design.