National Gallery of Iceland
Iceland's state art collection, in a converted 1916 freezing plant beside the Tjornin lake.
The gallery was founded in 1884 in Copenhagen by the jurist Bjorn Bjarnarson, who gathered gifts of work from Danish artists for a future Icelandic collection. It passed to the National Museum in 1916 and became an independent institution again in 1961. Since 1987 it has occupied Frikirkjuvegur 7 on the eastern shore of the Tjornin, a building put up as an ice house and freezing plant in 1916 to a design by Gudjon Samuelsson and converted for museum use by Gardar Halldorsson.
The collection now runs to some sixteen thousand works and is the principal record of Icelandic art from the late nineteenth century onwards, with Thorarinn B. Thorlaksson, Asgrimur Jonsson, Johannes S. Kjarval, Nina Tryggvadottir and Svavar Gudnason among the artists held in depth. There are also European prints and drawings, including work by Picasso and Munch. The gallery operates alongside the House of Collections and the Asgrimur Jonsson Collection, and a visitor entrance on Laufasvegur serves four halls on two floors.
Highlights
- Converted 1916 freezing plant by Gudjon Samuelsson on the Tjornin
- Around sixteen thousand works, the main record of Icelandic art
- Holdings of Kjarval, Asgrimur Jonsson and Nina Tryggvadottir
- Four exhibition halls on two floors, with a changing programme
