The Award-Winning Art Museum Sagnaheimar Folk Museum in the magical

The Award-Winning Art Museum

from the People of Árnes County

Listasafn Árnesinga – LÁ Art Museum, is situated in Hveragerði, in Árnes County, South Iceland, half an hour drive from Reykjavík. It is an art museum that preserves a collection of modern and contemporary art mainly by Icelandic artists and has contemporary art exhibitions in various media.

The museum is owned by eight municipalities in South Iceland and was awarded the Icelandic Museum Prize of 2018. Back in 1963, Bjarnveig Bjarnadóttir [1905–1993] and her two sons, Loftur [1930–2019] and Bjarni Markús Jóhannesson [1939–] generously donated 41 artworks to the county and laid the foundations of the museum. Over a span of a quarter of a century the family continued to make donations, totalling 75 works in all. Ásgrímur Jónsson [1876– 1958], a pioneer in painting the wonders of Iceland’s majestic nature and to this day one of the most celebrated Icelandic artists, was Bjarnveig‘s uncle. Among the works given to the museum were nineteen paintings by Ásgrímur, the oldest one from 1900.

At the beginning, the museum was situated in Selfoss but moved to its current location in Hveragerði in 2001. The collection consists of over 500 artworks. Exhibitions are important part of the museum as well as events such as artists’ performances and workshops for families. Every year, the museum puts up several temporary exhibitions, solo and group shows of contemporary artists from Iceland and abroad. They represent the most current art tendencies showing video works, site-specific or sound installations. In connection with the exhibitions there are educational programmes on offer such as workshops, guided tours, and artists’ performances. -HH