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Poet Otto Gelsted (1888 - 1968)
Otto Gelsted was one of the outstanding representatives of Danish cultural life in the 20th century. He was a kind of catalyst for cultural ideas and movements: poet, art critic, translator of Greek classics and the first translator of Freud's works into Danish. He was a cultural and political activist, describing himself as a "communist and an adherent of modern art." He befriended many of the Icelandic artists that he met in Denmark, among them painters Jón Stefánsson and Jóhannes Kjarval and writers Gunnar Gunnarsson and Halldór Laxness. Among his earliest Icelandic friends was pater Jón Sveinsson (Nonni), who had been his teacher at the St. Andreas College in Ordrup. This portrait of a sitting Gelsted by a close friend caused quite a stir when it was first shown in the Artists' Autumn exhibition of 1941. In an interview with Susanne Jorn from 1991, art critic Pierre Lübecker recalls his impressions: "What I find marvellous about the Gelsted portrait is the sensitivity of the modelling, as well as the artist's sensitivity to the personality of the sitter. Gelsted was a capricious and impulsive personality. But I'm fascinated by this portrait, because it also depicts the poet in him. When you see it, you begin to understand how he was able to write about he Greeks. It was shown at the Artists' Autumn exhibition and I was absolutely flabbergasted when I saw it." Sculptor Sigurjón Ólafsson and his Portraits Sigurjón Ólafsson Museum 2008, ISBN 978-87-88755-05-03 |