Ásmundur Sveinsson was an Icelandic sculptor, was born at Kolsstadir in West Iceland

Iceland

Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...

 on May 20, 1893 and died in Reykjavík

Reykjavík

Reykjavík is the capital and largest city in Iceland.Its latitude at 64°08' N makes it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói Bay...

 on December 9, 1982.

Early years

In 1915 Ásmundur moved to Reykjavík where he enrolled in the Technical College of Iceland and apprenticed with sculptor Ríkarður Jónsson

Ríkarður Jónsson

Ríkarður Jónsson an Icelandic sculptor, was born on September 20, 1888 and died in 1972.-Early training:Ríkarður was born in the Icelandic east coast village of Djúpivogur. His mother was Ólöf Finnsdóttir and his father was Jón Þórarinsson. His early training was as a wood carver...

 for four years. In 1919 he relocated to Copenhagen, Denmark, and from there to Stockholm, Sweden, where he enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts where he remained for six years, much of it spent studying with sculptor Carl Milles

Carl Milles

Carl Milles was a Swedish sculptor, best known for his fountains. He was married to artist Olga Milles and brother to Ruth Milles and half brother to the architect Evert Milles...

.
In 1924 he married sculptor Gunnfríður Jónsdóttir

Gunnfríður Jónsdóttir

Gunnfríður Jónsdóttir was an Icelandic sculptor born in the North West of Iceland on December 26, 1889. She died in 1968.-Family:Gunnfríður's grandfather was Einar Andrésson, a rhymester who had been suspected of witchcraft...

, that he divorced later and married Ingrid and they had two children. After graduating from the Academy, Ásmundur moved to Paris, France where he continued his study, here under the sculptor Charles Despiau

Charles Despiau

Charles Despiau was a French sculptor.Despiau was born at Mont-de-Marsan, Landes and attended first the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs and later the Ecole des Beaux Arts...

.

Work

Ásmundur returned to Iceland in 1929 and began producing a series of abstracted figurative works. His themes were often men and women at work and included such pieces as, The Blacksmith, The Washer Women and The Water Carrier. During the 1940s Ásmundur's work moved even farther away from the human and animal form that had been his mainstay until then and by the 1950s he was producing work that was almost entirely abstract.
Like many Icelandic artists Ásmundur drew upon the traditions of his native country when seeking subjects to inspire him. These include Trollwoman, (1948), Head Ransom, (1948), based on a poem that Egil Skallagrimsson composed to save his own head and bleep-Ride, (1944) taken from the Prose Edda

Prose Edda

The Prose Edda, also known as the Younger Edda, Snorri's Edda or simply Edda, is an Icelandic collection of four sections interspersed with excerpts from earlier skaldic and Eddic poetry containing tales from Nordic mythology...

 of Snorri Sturlusson. His Sæmundur and the Seal, also in this vein, is situated in front of the main building of the University of Iceland

University of Iceland

The University of Iceland is a public research university in Reykjavík, Iceland, and the country's oldest and largest institution of higher education. Founded in 1911, it has grown steadily from a small civil servants' school to a modern comprehensive university, providing instruction for about...

 in Reykjavík.
Generally, the artist believed in placing works of art not only in the hands of a small elite, but also in making them accessible to the public. Other works of Ásmundur Sveinsson are to be found on the hill Öskjuhlíð near Perlan in Reykjavík or at the farm of Borg á Mýrum near Borgarnes. The abstract sculpture here represents the saga hero Egill having his dead son in his arms. The title Sonartorrek is referring to a poem which Egill Skallagrimsson wrote about this scene.

Ásmundarsafn

The former house of the artist in Laugardalur, Reykjavík, has been installed as a museum, called Ásmundarsafn. The house was constructed in the 1930s, based on designs drawn by the artist who was a fan of the Bauhaus

Bauhaus

', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...

 style. The house is slightly reminiscent of Le Corbusier

Le Corbusier

Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier , was a Swiss-born French architect, designer, urbanist, writer and painter, famous for being one of the pioneers of what now is called modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930...

and his chapel of Ronchamp. The sculpture garden nearby is open to public.

External links

• http://www.listasafnreykjavikur.is/Asmundarsafn/asmundarsafn.en.shtml
• http://www.borgarfjordur.com/pages/p7.html