Óskar Magnússon (1915-1993)

Oskar Magnusson is a part of folk artists in Icelandic art history, he and his wife Blómey Stefansdottir, created textiles which were exhibited in Iceland and abroad.  Magnusson didn’t receive any formal education in his art, he was a worker on the docks, but his dream was to transmit his ideals and ideas in an artistic way.  Magnusson was a man with strong opinions and on a given point he decided to abandon society because of a dispute with the local authority when they decided to demolish his home to make a way for a bypass.  Magnusson had built himself his house in Reykjavik, it looked like no other house and witnessed his original way of thinking and his eccentricity.  Magnusson then built a small hut for him and his wife on the heath Hellisheiði, not far away from Hveradalir.  For nine years Magnusson and his wife lived on the “Mountain” as it was called, in very primitive conditions and dealt with the roughness of the Icelandic weather and nature.  There they wove their textiles, which were well noted – as their self-appointed exile.  Magnusson wove various images, his favourite theme was his idol, Josef Stalin, but he also made many different rugs following the spirit of the naive art – the artistic rendering of the dream of men living in peace with nature.  His many portraits of the old Icelandic poets as well as various Icelandic folk themes show Magnusson’s skills to express in different ways his creation.