The Birth of a Vanguard – Icelandic Art 1940–1950
In: A Cultural History of the Avant-Garde in the Nordic Countries 1925-1950Search for other papers by Aðalsteinn Ingólfsson in
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Abstract
World War ii changed the social and economic circumstances of Icelandic artists. But it also served to isolate them from the modernist art of the period, until the expatriate Svavar Guðnason burst on the scene in May 1945 with a powerful combination of the expressionism, surrealism and primitivist art that he had been exposed to in the Danish Helhesten group. His exhibition had a huge impact on young artists, who had long been starved of new ideas.
Guðnason went on both to consolidate his position as artistic trendsetter and to ensure the hegemony of Helhesten art on the Icelandic art scene by persuading his Danish colleagues to transfer their annual autumn exhibition (Høstutstillingen) of 1947 to Iceland in the spring of 1948. In order to win over the general public, Guðnason also used his influence in Iceland to hand-pick favourable newspaper reviewers for the exhibition. The 1948 Danish exhibition in Reykjavík, which was accompanied by a visit by the artist couple Carl-Henning Pedersen and Else Alfelt, was an eye-opener for a small group of Icelandic artists, who went on to create a short-lived but surprisingly cohesive movement in a proto-Helhesten style.
For a number of reasons, outlined in this essay, this movement must be regarded as Iceland‘s first avant-garde in the visual arts, instead of the possibly more radical and certainly more influential concrete art of the 1950s.