Sigurjón Ólafsson
1908 Born in Eyrarbakki, October 21st.
1928 Admitted to the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts under the tutelage of Professor Einar Utzon-Frank.
1930 Received the gold medal of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts for his Labourer (LSÓ 1017).
1931−32 Studied in Rome.
1935 Graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts.
1937 Exhibited with the avant-garde group ‘Linien’ in Copenhagen.
1938 Made the portrait My Mother (LSÓ 007) in a summer visit to Iceland.
1939 Awarded the Eckersberg Medal for My Mother. Exhibited with ‘Skandi­naverne’. Made the groundbreaking work Man and Woman(LSÓ 1054).
1940−45 German occupation of Denmark. Sigurjón was closely linked to the Danish resistance movement, and with a group of Danish artists who later formed the ‘Cobra’ group.
1941 Exhibited with ‘13 Artists in Tent’, in Bellevue, in collaboration with the architect Finn Juhl.
1941−44 Made two granite sculptures for the Town Hall Square in Vejle in Denmark. Agriculture and Handicraft (LSÓ 1062) and Commerce and Industry (LSÓ 1063).
1945 Returned to Iceland and established a home and studio in a milit­ary hut on the Laugarnes peninsula in Reykjavík. For the next ten years he worked mainly in dolerite.
1952 Provided with facilities at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen he worked on statues of Rev. Friðrik Friðriksson (LSÓ 1120) and union leader Héðinn Valdimarsson (LSÓ 1126), both to be erected in Reykjavík.
1952−78 Made over twenty sculptures and statues in public space in Iceland.
1960−62 Resided at the Reykjalundur sanatorium with tuberculosis. Had acces to workshop and started working with iron and collage.
1966−69 Made 90 meters long relief in the the facade of Búrfell Hydropower Plant (LSÓ 1232).
1972 Retrospective exhibition at the National Gallery of Iceland.
1982 Awarded the Grand Cross of the Icelandic Order of the Falcon. Awarded honorary artist's stipend by Alþingi (parliament).
  Sigurjón Ólafsson passed away in Reykjavík, December 20th 1982.