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Author Halldór Kiljan Laxness (1902 - 1998)
Sigurjón Ólafsson modelled the portrait bust of Halldór Laxness during his stay at the Reykjalundur sanatorium, which lies close to the writer's home, Gljúfrasteinn. On his daily constitutional Laxness would stop over in Reykjalundur to sit for the sculptor. Halldór Laxness took his name from the nearby family farm of Laxnes, and at the age of seventeen he published his first book. Later he spent some time in a Benedictine monastery in Luxembourg before travelling to he United States, where he wrote his next major work in 1929. Halldór Laxness was undoubtedly the great cosmopolitan amongst Icelandic writers, an avid commentator on the most important issues of his time, at home as well as abroad. He has been credited with renewing the epic literary tradition of the Icelandic Sagas. Halldór Laxness was a prolific and important author, whose books have been translated into dozens of languages. In 1955 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Sculptor Sigurjón Ólafsson and his Portraits Sigurjón Ólafsson Museum 2008, ISBN 978-87-88755-05-03 |