Sámal Joensen-Mikines

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Sámal Elias Frederik Joensen-Mikines (born February 23, 1906 in Mykines , Faroe Islands , † September 21, 1979 in Copenhagen ) was a Faroese painter . The name is pronounced [ ˈmiːtʃɪneːs ]. He was the first professional artist in the Faroe Islands and is known as the "father of Faroese painting". A pronounced Nordic expressionist style is characteristic of Mikines' art.

biography

Hvítanes and the Skálafjørður on the first Faroe Islands stamp series in 1975

Samuel Elias Frederik was born on February 23, 1906 as the eldest of six children of the shoemaker Johannes Frederik Joensen († 1934) and Anna Cathrine Marie Sophie Abrahamsen († December 31, 1954) on the inaccessible island of Mykines, which is the westernmost outpost of the Faroese archipelago. He adopted the island's name as a stage name in 1931 (a spelling reform later changed the spelling of the island's name from Mikines to Mykines ). Sámal is the Faroese form of the baptismal name Samuel . All his life Mikines, as he was commonly known, felt a strong connection to his native island, its dramatic nature and its people.

In 1924 he came into contact with the Swedish landscape painter William Gislander on his home island , who was visiting there. The young Mikines collected his discarded tubes of paint and began to paint himself with the leftovers. In 1927 Mikines came to the capital Tórshavn and together with William Heinesen and Jákup Olsen presented the first art exhibition in the Faroe Islands. The three repeated the exhibition the following year.

From 1928 to 1932 Mikines received his artistic training at the painting school of the Royal Danish Academy of Art in Copenhagen with Professor Ejnar Nielsen and Aksel Jørgensen . In 1931 he had his debut exhibition in the Danish capital.

Back in the Faroe Islands in 1932, Mikines settled in Tórshavn, but visited his home island regularly. At this point he was already a professional painter. He received his first commissioned work in 1933 when he designed the altarpiece for the Church of Kirkja on Fugloy . His large solo exhibition in Tórshavn in 1934 showed portraits of famous contemporary compatriots such as Hans Andrias Djurhuus , Jóannes Patursson and Christian Matras . In the meantime he has also established himself firmly in the Danish art scene and has repeatedly received awards. His motifs were mostly landscapes and village scenes from his home islands. An exception to this rule is a series of depictions of Danish landscapes - of Bornholm and Bovbjerg , which he painted in the transition to the 1960s.

Mykineskona from 1934 shows a grieving fisher woman from Mykines after the accident in the same year, when nine friends and relatives of Sámal Joensen-Mikines stayed at sea. 54 × 42 cm, Faroe Islands Art Museum .

In the years 1933 to 1940, human suffering is the fundamental issue. The soulful artist experiences death in the most painful way - three of his siblings and his father die of tuberculosis . Added to this is the loss of ships and other accidents on the high seas that cost several of the young men in the small town their lives. They are family members of Mikines, peers and comrades. Mikines takes on the task of depicting suffering. In large, imposing compositions in an ascetic tonal language and dark colors, he paints the mourning relatives who are gathered around the death camp, around the coffin or after the burial. A number of strong portraits of Mykines residents were also painted during this period, which can be counted among the most original and significant. With Edvard Munch he could say: “All art, literature as well as music, must be produced with the heart and soul of the artist. Art itself is the blood of the heart. ”In addition to Munch, the French Eugène Delacroix had a great influence on Mikines' work.

A long trip abroad in 1937 was crucial for Mikines' artistic development. The trip went to Bergen , Oslo , Stockholm , Gothenburg , Copenhagen, The Hague , Amsterdam and Paris . The impressions of this trip dissolve into colors and temperament and announce the settlement of the 1930s with the "darkness of death". In 1938 Mikines moved to Copenhagen. During the British occupation of the Faroe Islands in World War II , his homeland was cut off from German-occupied Denmark, so that, like many of his compatriots, he was forced to spend the war years in Copenhagen.

Listafelag Føroya (Faroe Islands Art Association) was founded there in 1941 with the aim of building up a collection of Faroese art. This later became the Faroe Islands Art Museum . One of the first acquisitions was a Mikines painting. In 1942 Mikines began his famous painting of pilot whales in the Faroe Islands .

From 1944 to 1952 Mikines was married to his artist colleague Elinborg Lützen . After the war, he and Elinborg took the first ship to the Faroe Islands, the Aarhus, on August 1, 1945 . They visited Klaksvík and Mykines and settled in the Faroe Islands.

At a major exhibition in Oslo in 1946 there was a scandal when Mikines' picture of the pilot whale caught there was removed because it was discovered that he had joined the Danish Nazi party in 1940. However, this happened during a period of madness, as his biographer Bárður Jákupsson later noted, and he immediately quit when he was back to his senses. Still, he was in the file, but on the other hand, from Mikine's actual political convictions, it was clear to everyone who knew him that he was anything but a Nazi, quite the opposite. In the same year there was a Christmas exhibition in Tórshavn with no fewer than 108 paintings by Mikines, which was partly a retrospective, but also presented new works that he painted in the summer of that year.

The art of Mikines changed in the direction of a coloristic formal language, at the expense of the expressionistic content. A number of landscapes from the Faroe Islands, especially Mykines, date from this period.

Líkskari (funeral procession) 1951, 60 × 88 cm, private collection. Postage stamp from 1991

The first Ólavsøka exhibition in Tórshavn took place in 1948 and has been an annual tradition in the Faroe Islands ever since. Mikines took part with 16 pictures. In 1949 his exhibition ban was lifted (because of the Nazi thing) in Denmark and Norway. From 1951 he received annual financial support from the state government of the Faroe Islands . After divorcing Elinborg in 1952, he went back to Copenhagen, where he settled.

In the 1950s he reverted to the suffering of his youth and created a number of meaningful works that represent a sublime synthesis of 1930s expressionism and post-war colorism.

In 1954, Mikines married Karen Nielsen, a nurse. The traveling exhibition was a great success together with other artists in Sønderborg , Vejle , Horsens , Middelfart , Herning , Viborg , Holstebro , Aalborg , Hjørring , Nakskov and Nykøbing , where he got a special place of honor and everywhere was hailed by art critics as the most outstanding artist has been.

In 1955 Mikines was represented at the Nordic art exhibition in Rome with 21 paintings. In May he went to the Faroe Islands with Karen, where he created 32 paintings, one of which was immediately bought by the Danish State Art Museum. In the same year, the Faroese Art Association arranged the first major exhibition of Faroese art in Copenhagen - Mikines got a room to himself there. The exhibition went on to Aarhus , Frederikshavn , Hjørring, Randers , Skive , Varde , Esbjerg , Odense and Roskilde .

Karen gave birth to son Kári in 1956. In addition to the regular exhibitions in Denmark and the Faroe Islands, perhaps the one in Paris in 1957 should be highlighted, which was actually not an art exhibition, but a Faroe Islands exhibition in Danske Hus there. Mikines was invited there, exhibited 5 pictures and used the trip to see Delacroix 'picture Dante and Virgil in the Louvre - just this one picture.

1959 followed a long stay in the Faroe Islands, where he met his artist colleague Ingálvur av Reyni and worked with him. The Mikines exhibition in Tórshavn in September was a great success. He was able to sell so many paintings that the family could buy a better apartment in Copenhagen (Østerbrogade 33).

In 1961, Mikines began to paint a non-Faroese landscape for the first time in his artistic life: Bornholm, where he and Karen spent spring and summer. In October of that year he was represented at a large Faroese art exhibition in Reykjavík . In 1964 Mikines spent a long time in the Faroe Islands, where he again teamed up with Ingálvur av Reyni.

On his 60th birthday in 1966, Mikines was honored by various magazines and newspapers. The Løgting presented him with the honorary award of the Faroese Cultural Fund with the words:

In gratitude for your tireless cultural work and the many works of art with which you have enriched the Faroese and made Faroese quality art known and respected in the world.

Mikines had been suffering from psoriasis since 1935 and had been so ill for long periods of time in recent years that he was in various hospitals. In 1967 he painted the famous altarpiece of the Ólav church in Kirkjubøur in the house of the senior doctor of the Faroese national hospital . In the same year he was honored as part of a large solo exhibition in Tórshavn, where 79 works were on display. Despite his serious illness, he continued to be extremely productive and in 1968 painted 100 watercolors from the Faroe Islands, Bovbjerg and Bornholm.

In 1969, Mikines suffered a serious swimming accident near Sandkås that almost cost him his life. Karen was able to revive him. He never recovered from this event. His pictures became fewer and were of "varying quality", as Jákupsson states.

In 1970, William Heinesen and Janus Kamban arranged a large exhibition of Faroese art on the occasion of the 900th anniversary of the city of Bergen - with many Mikines pictures. His pictures were u. a. bought by the Danish Foreign Ministry, Folketing , Carlsberg Foundation and Løgting. In 1971 a traveling exhibition followed in Lerwick , Kirkwall , Aberdeen , Inverness , Glasgow and Edinburgh . That year he painted his very last picture with a view from elementary school . For the next seven years, Mikines was no longer able to work.

A large Mikines exhibition in 1976 on the occasion of his 70th birthday in Tórshavn was followed by another large solo exhibition in Copenhagen. In 1977 a traveling exhibition began with Miknes' works, which are privately owned in Denmark. It lasted two years and took place in 16-17 different locations in Denmark.

Sámal Joensen-Mikines died on September 21, 1979 in Copenhagen.

At the Faroese Art Museum ( Listasavn Føroya ) in Tórshavn you can see a representative selection of Mikines' art. His workshop Kristianshus on Mykines is now a guest house. At the end of 2005 it was decided to build a Mikines Museum on his native island.

Outside the Faroe Islands, Mikines pictures hang in the art museums of Esbjerg, Herning , Nordjylland , Randers, Copenhagen, Tønder , Vejen , Vejle and Aarhus.

On the occasion of Mikines' 100th birthday, the largest exhibition of all time will take place from January 13th to March 12th, 2006 in the Faroe Islands Art Museum. 100 works from all creative periods were brought together. This is the inventory of those images that can be found on the Faroe Islands.

literature

  • William Heinesen : SJ Mikines: Retrospective framsyning , Tórshavn 1946
  • Ernst Mentze: S. Joensen-Mikines: Færøernes Maler, hans kunst og miljø , Copenhagen 1973
  • Bárður Jákupsson : Mikines. Tórshavn 1990. (255 pages, in Danish and Faroese, received the Faroese Literature Prize 1991).
  • Bárður Jákupsson: The Painter Mikines. - Faroe Isles Review . No. 1, 4-14 (1991).
With some illustrations, also in the Dansk udgave (Danish edition) of this magazine with the title Maleren Mikines .
  • Inge Dybbro (Ed.): Mikines , Kastrupgårdsamlingen, 2003 (111 p., Biographical part of Bárður Jákupsson)

Web links

Commons : Sámal Joensen-Mikines  - album with pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Joensen-Mikines, Sámal
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Joensen-Mikines, Sámal Elias Frederik (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Faroese painter
DATE OF BIRTH February 23, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Mykines , Faroe Islands
DATE OF DEATH September 21, 1979
Place of death Copenhagen