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Authors: Ragna Sigurðardóttir
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fisheries minister glances over the crowded hall, his eyes flitting from one delegate to another; they rest briefly on Hrafn before he returns to his speech. “Icelandic fisheries are different from those of other countries,” he says proudly. “Different in the sense that they do not enjoy public funding. They are privately run.”
And so his speech goes on. Hrafn looks around the hall. He knows some of the Icelanders here; he has personal connections with the Icelandic visual arts and regularly attends arts events in Reykjavik, so he recognizes many faces among the artists. Hrafn is an only child who inherited a collection of paintings from his father, Arni, who was a shipowner, passionately patriotic, with a heart of gold and a fondness for drink. Arni was a hands-on man; he knew all his employees and their families personally and could address their children by name.It annoyed Hrafn to listen to his father singing the praises of his workers and his country, singing patriotic songs in a haze of bluish smoke with his London Docks cigar in one hand and a glass of cognac in the other, sitting under a painting by Gunnlaugur Scheving of sailors battling a storm. He felt his father’s attitude belonged to a bygone age.
Arni was a generous man who loved the arts and knew how to enjoy the good things of life, but in his later years, his business went into decline and he lacked the drive to expand or to update his assets. He didn’t keep abreast of developments in his field; he just stuck with tried-and-trusted methods. After his death, Hrafn totally turned the business around, got it back up again, and tripled its turnover.
The paintings Arni had collected were a haphazard selection of works by amateurs and professional artists—pictures of the harbor, townscapes of Reykjavik, landscapes, and sentimental paintings of sunsets. Arni bought paintings from most of the people who knocked on his door. In his eyes, artists’ contributions formed an important part of the nation’s self-image. These men stood side by side with Arni in the struggle to achieve a decent life for an independent nation. Men, for there were no women who knocked on Arni’s door; he was not that progressive.
After his father’s death, Hrafn had experts value the collection; he got rid of the sunsets but held on to the cultural heritage. In his eyes, the paintings are a financial investment. Hrafn is not given to patriotic feelings. He knows his art collection inside out; he has made it his business to know the life’s work of the most highly respected painters and the price their works will fetch. He knows which periods are the most soughtafter, where the missing links in the chain are, and where the market has been saturated. Hrafn rates his paintings according to their value; the most valuable ones are in storage. He collects works almost exclusively by deceased artists.
Hrafn feels his phone vibrate in his breast pocket. He recognizes the number. He has been in discussion with Kristin, the director of the Reykjavik gallery, recently. She is constantly networking in the private sector for financial support, both for one-off exhibitions and ongoing projects, and one of her pet projects is to get rid of the entrance fee. So far he has avoided committing himself, but now he needs to make a decision, either to refuse or agree to support her project, but he still has not made up his mind. He doesn’t pick up. The gallery is not his priority, and Kristin will have to wait for the moment; he will talk to her later. Hrafn is keen to support the gallery financially, but he is not sure he wants to fork out the sum she’s after and not get anything tangible in return.
Hrafn views paintings through the eye of common sense and not from the heart as his father did. He is not at all interested in the artists here at the conference, paid for by the state with the aim of enhancing his country’s image abroad and showing that Iceland is a player on the
And so his speech goes on. Hrafn looks around the hall. He knows some of the Icelanders here; he has personal connections with the Icelandic visual arts and regularly attends arts events in Reykjavik, so he recognizes many faces among the artists. Hrafn is an only child who inherited a collection of paintings from his father, Arni, who was a shipowner, passionately patriotic, with a heart of gold and a fondness for drink. Arni was a hands-on man; he knew all his employees and their families personally and could address their children by name.It annoyed Hrafn to listen to his father singing the praises of his workers and his country, singing patriotic songs in a haze of bluish smoke with his London Docks cigar in one hand and a glass of cognac in the other, sitting under a painting by Gunnlaugur Scheving of sailors battling a storm. He felt his father’s attitude belonged to a bygone age.
Arni was a generous man who loved the arts and knew how to enjoy the good things of life, but in his later years, his business went into decline and he lacked the drive to expand or to update his assets. He didn’t keep abreast of developments in his field; he just stuck with tried-and-trusted methods. After his death, Hrafn totally turned the business around, got it back up again, and tripled its turnover.
The paintings Arni had collected were a haphazard selection of works by amateurs and professional artists—pictures of the harbor, townscapes of Reykjavik, landscapes, and sentimental paintings of sunsets. Arni bought paintings from most of the people who knocked on his door. In his eyes, artists’ contributions formed an important part of the nation’s self-image. These men stood side by side with Arni in the struggle to achieve a decent life for an independent nation. Men, for there were no women who knocked on Arni’s door; he was not that progressive.
After his father’s death, Hrafn had experts value the collection; he got rid of the sunsets but held on to the cultural heritage. In his eyes, the paintings are a financial investment. Hrafn is not given to patriotic feelings. He knows his art collection inside out; he has made it his business to know the life’s work of the most highly respected painters and the price their works will fetch. He knows which periods are the most soughtafter, where the missing links in the chain are, and where the market has been saturated. Hrafn rates his paintings according to their value; the most valuable ones are in storage. He collects works almost exclusively by deceased artists.
Hrafn feels his phone vibrate in his breast pocket. He recognizes the number. He has been in discussion with Kristin, the director of the Reykjavik gallery, recently. She is constantly networking in the private sector for financial support, both for one-off exhibitions and ongoing projects, and one of her pet projects is to get rid of the entrance fee. So far he has avoided committing himself, but now he needs to make a decision, either to refuse or agree to support her project, but he still has not made up his mind. He doesn’t pick up. The gallery is not his priority, and Kristin will have to wait for the moment; he will talk to her later. Hrafn is keen to support the gallery financially, but he is not sure he wants to fork out the sum she’s after and not get anything tangible in return.
Hrafn views paintings through the eye of common sense and not from the heart as his father did. He is not at all interested in the artists here at the conference, paid for by the state with the aim of enhancing his country’s image abroad and showing that Iceland is a player on the
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