Most lcelandic artists since the turn of the century had looked to Copenhagen for their training, but Jóhannes turned instead to the United States. Europe was in ruins after the Second World War and Denmark had been closed to lcelanders until the spring of 1945. The United States was growing in artistic stature; many of Europe’s leading artists had escaped to the States during the War, and New York had become one of the great centres of artistic innovation. Jóhannes’s artistic training was thus not a classical one, for the school he entered had abandoned the accepted classical traditions of beginning training by drawing after models. Instead, the students were allowed to develop their art each in his own way under the guidance of a teacher. Studies also took the form of lectures, where pictures of the older masters in the large and remarkable collection attached to the school were analysed. This was the famous private college of the Barnes Foundation in Merion, Pennsylvania, named after its founder Albert C. Barnes, who was renowned for his independent and original opinions. Jóhannes, together with the lcelandic painter Kristján Davíðsson, were the only foreigners to study there at this time. Here Jóhannes became conversant with the important innovations in art as well as the historical perspective. Abstract art did not take roots in lceland until after the social upheavals of the Second World War had created an environment favourable for its existence. An important turning-point in the history of lcelandic art came when Svavar Guðnason held his first abstract exhibition in lceland in the Listamannaskáli in 1945. When Jóhannes returned home from his studies in 1946 he immediately joined the ranks of those who sought to break new ground in the fine arts, and he played a key role in the turbulent conflicts which sprang up in the wake of the September Exhibition of 1947 in the Listamannaskáli, which was a joint exhibition held by abstract and abstract-figurative artists. Henceforth lcelandic art was to be divided into two categories, abstract and fine art. Jóhannes travelled abroad again in 1949 for further studies at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence. Later that year he studied in Paris, to

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(3) Blaðsíða [1]
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(41) Kvarði
(42) Litaspjald