The Icelandic Sagas Revisited

Drawings by Karin Birgitte Lund 

Exhibition 27 October – 25 November 2018

2014 saw the new Danish translation of the complete edition of the Icelandic Sagas, featuring 40 illustrations for 40 of the sagas by the artist, Karin Birgitte Lund. The drawings are being exhibited here for the first time as part of the exhibition series that commemorates the 100th anniversary of Iceland’s independence.  

The drawings illustrate the sagas, using motifs from Viking and medieval Iceland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The artist’s interpretation provides an impression of the fascinating aesthetic of those periods. The pictures are inspired by medieval Icelandic manuscripts, frescoes from Danish churches, Norwegian stave churches and Gotland’s picture stones.

The exhibition also includes a series of brand new, large-scale drawings inspired by the era of the sagas.

Karin Birgitte Lund was born in Copenhagen in 1946, and from 1967 to 1973 studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. She was awarded the Eckersberg Medal in 1997, and the Danish Arts Foundation’s Honorary Bursary in 2004. She designed and illustrated the new series of Danish banknotes.