Bragi Ásgeirsson (1931)

After Bragi Asgeirsson graduated from The School of Arts and Crafts in Reykjavík in 1950 he moved to Copenhagen for further studies.  He was at the Academy in Copenhagen from 1950-52 and in Oslo from 1952-53 where he studied at the Academy and attended courses in graphics. In 1953-54 he went to Rom and Florence and then returned back to Copenhagen to study in the winther of 1955-56.  From 1958-1960 Asgeirsson stayed in Germany, in Munchen and traveled, to Western-Europe, Jugoslavia, East-Germany, Russia, America and Canada.  Asgeirsson was a teacher at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts for many years, from 1956-1996.

Asgeirsson has been a promoter of graphics in Iceland during the last decades and he has been an active columnist and a critique of art in the daily Morgunblaðið since 1966.  Asgeirsson is also a painter, his early works range from pop-art style to present day abstract paintings. Today his paintings are dominated by lyrical softness and rich material in forms and colors.  Asgeirsson’s interests both in abstract and figurative forms is obvious in his graphic works where a strong formalism and the pictorial composition is made through the methods of abstract art, even though the subject is not abstract at all.  Asgeirsson has worked with graphic in periods, and after a long break he restarted to make prints in 1983.  He has made graphic illustrations to Icelandic poems and reworked recurrent themes in his graphics, especially the theme of the woman, which he materializes in different ways in his works.