Louisa Matthíasdóttir

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Louisa Matthíasdóttir (born February 20, 1917 in Reykjavík , † February 26, 2000 in Delhi , New York ) was an Icelandic-American painter. Her work has been included in the collections of the Tate Gallery in London and various museums in Scandinavia and the USA.

Life

Erlendur in Unahus
Louisa Matthíasdóttir , around 1940
Oil on canvas
70.80 x 58.7 cm

Link to the picture
(please note copyrights )

Louisa Matthíasdóttir was born in Reykjavík in 1917 as the youngest of three children of Ellen LM Johannessen and Matthías Einarsson into a wealthy family. Her parents supported her by giving her private art classes. Her father was an early patron of the Icelandic painter Jón Stefánsson and owned other paintings. Since there were no corresponding training opportunities in Iceland at the time, Louisa completed an apprenticeship at Kunsthåndværkerskolen in Copenhagen from 1934 to 1937, a school that was more focused on applied art and design. Her parents wanted to enable her to earn a living with art. After graduating, after a summer at home in Iceland, she continued her studies with Marcel Gromaire in Paris, where she lived with a family of friends. She left Paris in the summer of 1939 because of the tense political situation.

Still Life with Frying Pan and Red Cabbage
Louisa Matthíasdóttir , 1979
132.0 x 152.4 cm
Tate Gallery

Link to the picture
(please note copyrights )

The next few years were marked by the beginning of World War II and the occupation of Iceland by Great Britain. Apparently this did little to harm the local art scene; Louisa became part of it and continued to develop her skills as a painter, although with her training in Copenhagen she could also have worked as a designer. Her father made the space available to her. Among other things, she made the acquaintance of the later Nobel Prize winner Halldór Laxness , who sat her model and published about her and befriended young artists. She also painted several portraits of Steinn Steinarr .

At the end of 1942 she moved to New York City with her friend, the artist Nína Tryggvadóttir , where she continued her studies at the school of Hans Hofmann , whose expressionist direction appealed to her now developed - European-influenced - style. New York at this time was full of European artists who had fled or emigrated. In addition to Louisa, the painter Virginia Admiral and her husband, the painter Robert De Niro, Sr. belonged to the circle around Hans Hofmann; Here she also met the artist Leland Bell (1922–1991), with whom she married in 1944. Her daughter Temma , born in 1945, was a regular subject of her work for the next few years.

White and black sheep
Louisa Matthíasdóttir , 1983
Oil on canvas
38.1 x 33 cm
Private collection

Link to the picture
(please note copyrights )

Louisa had her first solo show, which was discussed twice in the New York Times , in 1948 at the Jane Street Gallery. In 1951 the family spent a year in Paris, followed by a stay in Iceland until late 1951 / early 1953. They lived and worked in modest circumstances; Leeland Bell had previously worked as a cleaner, now they lived in a two-room apartment of a connecting house , where they took over the job as house parents in return. Louisa developed an interest in sculpture in the 1950s, and in 1958 she had another solo show at the Tanager Gallery.

Between 1994 and 1991 Louisa exhibited her work regularly at the Schoelkopf Gallery in Manhattan. She had major solo exhibitions at the American-Scandinavian Foundation and in Iceland, and also a major traveling exhibition in 1996 and 1998. She lived in New York until 1999, but regularly spent longer periods of time in Iceland as she got older - which is also reflected in her the motifs of her work had an impact, which always showed the treeless landscapes of their homeland in addition to their direct living environment.

In the late 1990s, Louisa, increasingly frail, moved to the family of her daughter (also a painter) on their farm in Delhi , a small town in New York State . She died there in February 2000 in a hospital.

Works

At first glance, Louisa Matthíasdóttir's works are simple and restrained: clear and flat landscapes, animals (horses, sheep, dogs, cats), self-portraits and the daughter Temma, as well as sparsely arranged still lifes. She only painted people as types, rarely as recognizable individuals. Their cityscapes have been compared to Edward Hopper or Giorgio de Chirico . She changed little in terms of style or technique over the years, most likely it became even clearer and simpler: fewer colors and wider brushstrokes. While she usually created her landscapes in a small format, the still lifes were often much larger - up to 1.80 meters in length.

Unlike Leland Bell and her artistic environment, Louisa largely eluded external influences (such as Piet Mondrian's abstraction or Hans Arp ) and insisted on her independence. Henri Matisse saw her as the only role model .

Louisa Matthíasdóttir's oeuvre was first processed in a monograph by Jed Perl in 1999, the text of which she was able to see a few months before her death.

Works in public collections (selection)

  • Still Life with Frying Pan and Red Cabbage, 1979; Oil on canvas, Tate Gallery, London
  • Sjálfsmynd, 1984; Iceland National Gallery (Listasafni Íslands)
  • Sjálfsmynd, 1939/40 and Sjálfsmynd; Hafnarborg, Hafnarfjördur Center of Culture and Fine Art
  • Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
  • Self-Portrait, 1982 and Self-Portrait in Overalls (undated), National Academy of Design , New York

Exhibitions (selection)

Solo exhibitions

Group exhibitions

  • 2009: From Unuhús to West 8th Street, Reykjavík Art Museum (Listasafn Reykjavíkur), works by Nína Tryggvadóttir and Louisa Matthíasdóttir

Awards

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Louisa Matthíasdóttir. Obituary. In: Morgunblaðið. February 29, 2000, accessed March 8, 2020 (Icelandic).
  2. ^ A b Matthiasdottir, Louisa . In: Joan M. Marter (Ed.): The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2011, ISBN 978-0-19-533579-8 , pp. 262 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  3. ↑ a b Jed Perl (Ed.): Louisa Matthiasdottir . 1st ed. Nesútgáfan Pub, Reykjavík, Iceland 1999, ISBN 9979-9194-8-5 , p. 31–34 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  4. ↑ a b Brenda Danilowitz: Matthíasdóttir, Louisa . In: Delia Gaze (Ed.): Concise dictionary of women artists . Routledge, New York 2011, ISBN 978-0-203-05880-0 , pp. 475–476 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  5. ↑ a b c d Biography - Estate of Louisa Matthiasdottir. In: louisamatthiasdottir.com. Retrieved February 15, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Jed Perl (Ed.): Louisa Matthiasdottir . 1st ed. Nesútgáfan Pub, Reykjavík, Iceland 1999, ISBN 9979-9194-8-5 , p. 40 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  7. ↑ a b c d Jed Perl (Ed.): Louisa Matthiasdottir . 1st ed. Nesútgáfan Pub, Reykjavík, Iceland 1999, ISBN 9979-9194-8-5 , p. 48–73 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  8. ↑ a b Robin Rice: Louisa Matthiasdottir . In: Woman's Art Journal . tape 23 , no. 1 , 2002, p. 48 , doi : 10.2307 / 1358972 , JSTOR : 1358972 .
  9. ↑ Jed Perl (Ed.): Louisa Matthiasdottir . 1st ed. Nesútgáfan Pub, Reykjavík, Iceland 1999, ISBN 9979-9194-8-5 , p. 181 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  10. ^ Still Life with Frying Pan and Red Cabbage (1979). In: tate.org.uk. Tate gallery, accessed February 15, 2020 (UK English).
  11. ↑ Sarpur.is - Myndlist / Hönnun. Retrieved February 16, 2020 (Icelandic).
  12. ↑ Sarpur.is - Myndlist / Hönnun. Retrieved February 16, 2020 (Icelandic).
  13. ^ Collection Search. In: Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden | Smithsonian. Retrieved February 16, 2020 .
  14. ^ Louisa Matthíasdóttir - NA Database. Retrieved February 16, 2020 (American English).
  15. ↑ a b c d e Exhibitions & Chronology - Estate of Louisa Matthiasdottir. Accessed February 16, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Matthíasdóttir, Louisa
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Matthiasdottir, Louisa
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Icelandic-American painter
DATE OF BIRTH February 20, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH Reykjavík
DATE OF DEATH February 26, 2000
Place of death Delhi