The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1961, Qupperneq 16

14
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Summer 1961
“He was an unschooled layman,
and has shown to professors and schol-
ars newer and freer paths.
“Fate pursued him cruelly
throughout his life, yet could not turn
the pure gold of his soul to rust, his
love of humanity to hatred, or his trust
in God to despair.’’
A few selections from Hunter’s tran-
slations appear in this number of the
magazine. All the translations are, in
the best Rosetti tradition, transfers of
the inspiration and appeal of poems
in one language into another language.
Emile Walters Painting in The Vatican
Emile Walters
A painting by Emile Walters has
been bought for the Vatican Museum
in Rome, Italy. As pictures by living
artists are seldom bought for the
Vatican, this is a signal honor for the
artist. The painting in question is a
documentary showing the first Chris-
tian church in the north, west of the
30th parallel of longitude. The title
is “Ruin in Hvalseyarfjord”, Southern
Greenland. Another picture by the
artist of the same subject is owned by
the National Cohection of Fine Arts,
Smithsonian Institute, Wash., D.C.
Under the auspices of the Smithson-
ian Institute an exhibition of Emile
Walters’ paintings of Greenland and
Iceland was shown last November in
four cities of Florida, and previously
in Newport, R. I., Boston, Mass., and
at Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.
Hampshire. The twenty-one paintings
included are a part of the series which
traces the route of the early Vikings
in their discovery of America.
At all exhibitions the artist received
very favourable comments from the
critics. The New York Times com-
ments on “the strange landscapes,
weird skies, and atmosphere effects . . .
that evince a striking sense of design.”
Newsweek reported that visitors liked
the ability with which Walters trans-
ferred space and brightness to his can-
vas” in an atmosphere strangely clear
. . . where colors stand out sharply.
Emile has won distinction as an art-
ist by his paintings in the north and
elsewhere. The following museums
have added his paintings to their
permanent collections: the Glasgow
Art Gallery, Scotland; Municipal Gal-
lery of Modem Art, Dublin, Ireland;
National Museum of Iceland; National
Museum of Finland, Helsinki; the
Luxenbourgh Galleries, Paris, France;
Grainger Museum, Melbourne, Aus-
tralia; University Museum, Bangkok,
Thailand; the United Nations; and the
Smithsonian Institute, Washington,
D. C. —Salome Halldorsson