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MILESTONES
The exhibition encompasses a period of a little over fifty years in the middle of
the 20th century, providing insight into the various periods of the art of
sculptor Sigurjón Ólafsson.
Sculptor Sigurjón Ólafsson (1908-1982) was born in the village of
Eyrarbakki in South Iceland. Trained as a house painter in Reykjavík he
entered the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen in the autumn of 1928.
After finishing his studies in 1935 he remained in Denmark working at his
art until the end of World War II. Returned to Iceland in 1945 he became
one of the leading artists of the country and was entrusted with numerous
challenging commissions, portrait busts and free standing statues. He also
created modernistic works for public buildings and open spaces. He is
represented in museums and private collections in Iceland, Denmark, Sweden,
Italy and the United States. The largest collection
of his works is to be found in the Sigurjón Ólafsson Museum
in Reykjavík.
The oldest piece in the exhibition, an haut-relief of two
sisters, clearly displays the influence of works of art Sigurjón
had seen in Iceland before coming to Copenhagen - for instance the
sculptures of Einar Jónsson (1874-1954), and two famous reliefs
by Icelandic-Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844), Day and
Night, casts of which were a popular feature of gravestones in Iceland.
The traditional artistic training provided at the Academy suited
Sigurjón well. But after completing his Labourer, for which he
received the Gold Medal at the Academy in 1930, he made various experiments in
his art, like other avant-garde Danish artists of the time who were interested
in Cubist and Surrealist trends in mainland Europe. In the flowering of Danish
cultural life in the 1930s Sigurjón created powerful spatial works using
simplified, almost abstract forms. Many of those works are in collections abroad,
while others are in Iceland, such as Footballers and Desire.
At about the time of the German occupation of Denmark
in 1940, Sigurjón received his largest commission so far:
two large granite sculptures for the town square in Vejle, Jutland.
For this work Sigurjón had to acquire a new technique,
sculpting in stone, and this heralded one of the most remarkable
periods of his artistic career. On his return to Iceland at the end
of World War II he started to work with Icelandic rock, developing
his own strong personal style.
But breathing stone-dust took a toll on his health.
Late in 1960 Sigurjón was diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis,
and he spent the next two years in a sanatorium. During his treatment
he was fortunate enough to be provided with facilities and assistance
to work in iron. That period produced works entirely different from
anything he had done before.
After that time Sigurjón started experimenting
with welding together sheets of copper, with the idea of working direct
with a durable material - and hence avoiding the additional cost of
casting works in bronze. Four-Sided Form of 1966 presages the
large copper-sheet works such as Throne Pillars at
Höfði House and Emblem of Iceland on Hagatorg in
Reykjavík.
A new period commenced in Sigurjón's art in the
1960s, when he received his largest-ever commission: reliefs for the
façade of the powerhouse of the gigantic Búrfell hydro
station. For this he developed a way to cast reliefs in concrete; and
in the 1970s he applied this method to many new buildings, such as the
Sundaborg complex above the Sundahöfn harbour in Reykjavík.
During the last years of his life, Sigurjón made
many pieces in wood - both commercial timber and driftwood. He allowed his
imagination free rein, and added new dimensions to his art.
1 Two Sisters 1929, LSÓ 191
Sigurjón made this relief of sisters Inger and Ingeborg Pedersen
during his first year of study at the Academy in Copenhagen. Their father, Carlo Pedersen, had run the
pharmacy in Sigurjón's home village of Eyrarbakki when Sigurjón was a boy. By this time
he was living in Copenhagen, and Sigurjón was a regular visitor to the family home. The
elder sister, Inger Olsen, presented the work to the Sigurjón Ólafsson Museum in 2009,
and it is now on display for the first time in the museum.
2 Labourer 1930, LSÓ 1017
In 1930 the Icelandic nation celebrated the millennium of the Alþingi (parliament), and
Sigurjón planned to return home for the event. Due to lack of funds, however, he was
unable to do so, and instead he spent his summer vacation in sculpting a labouring man,
over two metres in height, wielding a pick. This was the largest piece he had made.
Sigurjón had grown up among seamen and labourers, and this subject was close to
his heart. While the motif had overtones of Social Realism, the technical realisation of the
piece and the formal concept were rooted in classical art. Influence may also be
discerned from Sigurjón's contemporary, the Danish sculptor Kai Nielsen. For Labourer
Sigurjón won the Academy's Gold Medal. The following year the work was purchased by
the National Gallery of Iceland.
3 Hunchback 1934, LSÓ 003
The oldest extant example of Sigurjón's portrait sculptures is a small relief of his tutor
Aðalsteinn Sigmundsson (LSÓ 169, 1924). Sigurjón's interest
in the human visage and unusual characters persisted throughout his life, and his oeuvre
includes about 200 portraits.
Hunchback is a work of such remarkable psychological insight and artistic value that
it must be deemed one of the artist's best portraits.
4 Footballers 1936, LSÓ 247
In the early years of the twentieth century, the Nordic countries experienced an
awakening of public interest in a healthy lifestyle, sport and outdoor activity, under the
slogan A Healthy Mind in a Healthy Body - Mens sana in corpore sano. The period from
1900 to 1940 has been identified with the concept of vitalisme: many artists of that time
- painters and sculptors - sought inspiration in the vigour and vitality of youth. Sigurjón
had practised glíma (Iceland's ancient and unique form of wrestling), an experience
which stood him in good stead later, in Copenhagen. In 1933 or 1934 he made a sculpture
of two men wrestling (Glíma/ Icelandic Wrestling, LSÓ 002) and in 1936 and 1937 he
followed this up with his sculptures of footballers, which caused a sensation both for
their bold composition and simplification of form. The work displayed here is a fine
example of Sigurjón's quest to glorify the law of gravity, to create images which float,
while remaining in absolute equilibrium.
The original of the piece remained in Denmark for many years, before being
purchased in 1997 by Ólafur Ó. Johnson and his wife Guðrún, and presented to the
museum. On display here is a bronze cast of the original. A bronze enlargement of the
work was set up in 2001 in Akranes, one of Iceland's leading football communities.
5 My Mother 1938, LSÓ 007
This is undoubtedly Sigurjón's best-known work. Casts of the portrait are in the
collections of three national art museums in the Nordic countries: Moderna Museet in
Stockholm, Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen, and the National Gallery of
Iceland. A fourth cast is displayed here. See wall panels in the gallery for more discussion
of the piece.
6 Children at Play 1938, LSÓ 206
With its simplified, rounded forms, this work may be seen as a direct continuation of the
Football period in Sigurjón's art. It was part of a larger work made for a Children's House
which was to be constructed in memory of Hans Christian Andersen in the Tivoli Gardens
in Copenhagen. The proposal for the structure was developed jointly by architect
Henning Teisen, artist Egon Mathiesen and Sigurjón Ólafsson. The project received an
award, but was never executed; many years later Sigurjón reworked the motif for a
mural for the Landsbanki bank. It has been in two branches of the bank in Reykjavík, and
is now in the Akranes branch.
The original of the sculpture, first owned by Danish architect Finn Juhl, remained in
private ownership in Denmark for many years. In 1991 it was purchased by the Eimskip
shipping company and presented to the museum.
7 Desire 1939-40, LSÓ 234
Following on from the Football period of 1936-37, Sigurjón developed new approaches
to form and material. He worked both subtractively, i.e. by cutting into the material, and
additively, i.e. commencing at the centre and working outwards, adding clay or plaster of
Paris. Desire is an example of the additive method, using clay and plaster of Paris. It has
now been cast in bronze.
In 1994 the Sigurjón Ólafsson Museum purchased the original of the piece from a
private collector in Denmark who had owned it for fifty years. It had only once been on
public display, in 1941 at an exhibition of furniture by Danish architect Finn Juhl.
Juhl took a keen interest in sculptors of his time, and sought inspiration in the work
of Sigurjón and others such as Erik Thommesen and Jean Arp. In recent books about
Juhl, Desire has been incorrectly attributed to Arp. A bronze cast is currently exhibited
with the work of Finn Juhl at the Trapholt gallery in Denmark.
8 Sculptures on Vejle Town Square 1941-45, LSÓ 1062 & 1063
In 1941 Sigurjón was commissioned to make two large granite sculptures for the town
square in Vejle, Jutland, to depict the four pillars of the local economy: Agriculture,
Handicrafts, Commerce and Industry. Sigurjón made the sculptures during World War II,
mostly working alone, using hammer and chisel in the old way.
This was his last project, and also the largest, in the 17 years he spent in Denmark; it
also heralded an important era in his artistic career, the stone-sculpture period, which
continued into the 1960s.
9 Girl 1945, LSÓ 1081
Girl was Sigurjón's first work after his return from Denmark in the autumn of 1945, having
lived there since 1928 when he entered the Academy. Here we see clearly how the artist
worked with the mass or "clump", preserving the outlines of the rock and cutting into
only two surfaces, never deeply.
In 2002 poet Vilborg Dagbjartsdóttir composed a poem inspired by
Girl, which may be heard on a CD issued by the museum to accompany the
exhibition WOMAN - Mistress, crone, damsel, wife.
The original stone sculpture is in a private collection. The
fine bronze cast displayed here was made in 2007 by Pangolin Editions (UK).
10 Queen of the Mountains 1947, LSÓ 010
In the first half of the 20th century, many painters and sculptors followed Picasso's
example in using the mask motif in their work, in order to create a new and more
powerful imagery. They looked to the past, studying "primitive" art. Works of this type
have been termed Primitivism.
In 1947 Sigurjón made three pieces based on the same mask motif. This mask-piece
was later given the title Queen of the Mountains in reference to a symbolic female figure
embodying the spirit of Iceland. Made of wood and painted in bright colours,
the sculpture became faded and weathered as it was exposed to the elements for many years.
Another version was enlarged after Sigurjón's death, and erected by the Reykjavík City
Theatre in 1995.
11 Embrace 1952-53, LSÓ 014
For the first twelve years after his return to Iceland from Denmark, Sigurjón worked
mostly in stone: a total of 26 large-scale pieces. Embrace, chiselled from German
sandstone, is a smaller version of a piece of the same name worked in Icelandic dolerite
(LSÓ 1102) by Sigurjón in 1949, which stands adjacent to the museum building. The
original intention was to send the piece to Great Britain, in a competition to create a
memorial to the unknown soldier.
The original, which is two metres tall, was made in the year when Iceland became a
member of NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation), a "defensive" Western
alliance led by the USA. The government decision to take Iceland into NATO was hotly
debated in Iceland; the nation had only been an independent republic since 1944, and
many Icelanders, Sigurjón among them, were strongly opposed to joining this alliance.
He gave this work the alternative title NATO.
In the sculpture two heads are discernible - two bodies and four legs, tensed
together like wrestlers. The lines are straight and sharp, and the forms hard and flat.
Most striking are the forms which twist and turn around the piece like elongated arms, or
like serpents.
12 Cow's Head 1955, LSÓ 022
The work was made in the summer of 1955, when Sigurjón was staying with his
father-in-law at the rectory in Husby on the Danish island of Fyn. Sigurjón was always keen to
sculpt living models, and in this case the subject is a prizewinning cow on the farm. He
first modelled a sculpture in clay (LSÓ 1135), working in the cattleshed, then chiselled a
granite version into a rock he found in a nearby wall. The bovine theme was familiar to
him, as in 1933 he had assisted Professor Utzon-Frank in making a vast relief of a bull, Tyr,
for the Copenhagen Meat Market.
13 Steinn Steinarr/Infant 1955, LSÓ 1137
This granite sculpture, like Cow's Head, was made on the island of Fyn in Denmark in the
summer of 1955. The subject is a naked, helpless infant, still attached to a rounded rock
(the womb) by a symbolic umbilical cord. Sigurjón sketches in cords around the rock,
which is otherwise left in its natural state.
The sculpture was later dedicated to the memory of poet Steinn Steinarr (1908-58),
whose name has been cut into the stone. The work is part of the ASÍ (trades union) art
collection, but is located in the Sigurjón Ólafsson Museum.
14 Reformation 1956, LSÓ 1148
Sigurjón had previously worked in copper wire, for instance in his mural for
Búnaðarbanki/the Agricultural Bank in Reykjavík in
1948, (LSÓ 1097) but here for the first
time he uses sheet copper, which is cold-hammered into shape.
Guðrún St. Halldórsdóttir gave the
work to the museum in 2006 in memory of her brother, Rútur Halldórsson,
who had purchased the piece in 1958 after Sigurjón's birthday exhibition at
Listamannaskálinn. The piece has not been on public display since then.
15 Mother Earth 1961, LSÓ 1177
Working in stone, Sigurjón had inhaled quantities of stone dust, which adversely affected
his health. Late in 1960 he was diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis, which had been a
major public-health problem in Iceland in the first half of 20th century. He was admitted
to the Reykjalundur sanatorium outside Reykjavík, where he spent the next two years.
During his treatment he was fortunate enough to be provided with facilities and
assistance which enabled him to work in iron. He made works quite unlike anything he
had done before. During his time at the sanatorium Sigurjón made a total of fifteen
pieces in iron and other metals.
Mother Earth has at its core a vertical sheet of iron, with another intersecting it.
Sigurjón made several iron sculptures using the same motifs - fantastical creatures
resembling the basalt piece Man and Animal (LSÓ 018) of 1951 which stands at the
entrance to the museum.
16 Búrfell Wall Relief - Maquette I 1966, LSÓ 207
This is the first draft for the reliefs Sigurjón was commissioned to make for the
powerhouse of the Búrfell hydro station. Bronze cast of an original made in plaster of
Paris.
17 Búrfell Wall Relief 1966-69, LSÓ 1232
When Sigurjón's reliefs were made on the Búrfell powerhouse, they were by far the
largest works of art made by an Icelandic artist, and also in the most remote location.
The reliefs are five metres high and total 67 metres in length, covering 335mē of wall. In
these works Sigurjón developed an entirely new technique: he cut out "negatives" of the
forms in expanded polystyrene, which were fixed inside the shuttering before the
concrete was poured.
In addition to being Sigurjón's largest work, the Búrfell
reliefs also herald a new period in his art, when he made reliefs in concrete walls, e.g.
on the Sundaborg complex above Sundahöfn harbour in Reykjavík (LSÓ 1274),
Stórutjarnir school in north Iceland (LSÓ 1283) and apartment buildings in
Reykjavík and Kópavogur.
18 Four-Sided Form 1966, LSÓ 224
From 1964, following on from the Iron period, Sigurjón had been experimenting with
welding together sheets of copper, thus working direct in a durable material, and
avoiding the expense of casting in bronze. Some of the first of these works are
Circulation (LSÓ 1198) in the Nordic House, Reykjavík,
Banister (LSÓ 1197) at the Keldur Institute, University of Iceland ,
and Cardinal Points (LSÓ 1214) in the collection of the
National Gallery.
Four-sided Form is thus not among the first works using this
technique. It is on a monumental scale, and points the way to later outdoor works such as
Throne Pillars (LSÓ 1269) at Höfði House and
Emblem of Iceland (LSÓ 1278) on Hagatorg, both in Reykjavík.
19 Storm Petrel 1975, LSÓ 1300
Birds are a recurrent theme in Sigurjón's work, for instance in
The Bird (1939, LSÓ 1043), Swans (1954, LSÓ 021),
Arctic Tern (1956, LSÓ 024), Migratory Birds
(1961, LSÓ 1180), and Greeting (1973, LSÓ 073).
In 1975 he made two mahogany pieces, Bird of the Night (LSÓ
1293) and Storm Petrel.
The sculpture was presented to the Sigurjón
Ólafsson Museum in 1988 by the previous owners, Valborg Hallgrímsdóttir
and Kristján Guðmundsson.
20 Creation 1976/1988, LSÓ 072
In 1976 Sigurjón made a model in expanded polystyrene of a work he intended to have
cut in marble. By that time he was no longer working with stone himself. It was not until
after Sigurjón's death that his long-time assistant Erlingur Jónsson carved the marble
sculpture. At that time (1985 -88) Sigurjón's studio was undergoing restoration and
conversion into the present museum. The museum sought funding and financial
assistance from many parties; with great generosity, wholesalers Ó. Johnson & Kaaber
purchased the completed sculpture from the museum, and returned it as a gift on the
occasion of the opening of the Sigurjón Ólafsson Museum on 21 October 1988.
The forms which make up the pieces have parallels in other works by Sigurjón;
references to vegetation and life, a fertility goddess and a water creature with eyes and
fins.
21 The President 1980, LSÓ 118
The work is made up of rough offcuts of timber, delicate tropical woods and metal. The
core is a fragment of shipbuilding oak reminiscent of a throne, on which sits a delicate
crowned figure with ornaments, protected behind a curved piece (a stave from a barrel).
It was probably no coincidence that Sigurjón made this piece in the same year
that Vigdís Finnbogadóttir was elected Iceland's first female president.
22 Soft forms 1981, LSÓ 129
Columns are a recurrent theme of Sigurjón's visual world, from the very beginning of his
career in Denmark. Most of his works - including the abstracts - maintain human
proportions. The column works are no exception to the rule.
Sigurjón himself never imposed symbolism or predetermined meanings on those
who viewed his works, leaving them open to different interpretations.
In the last years of his life Sigurjón made many works of a variety of material that
came to hand, such as driftwood, as in this case.
Birgitta Spur
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