Ásmundur Sveinsson

Ásmundur Sveinsson was born on May 20, 1893, in Kolsstaðir, Dalasýsla. He studied sculpture in Stockholm under Carl Milles and in Paris under Antoine Bourdelle, assimilating cubism and avant-garde abstraction before returning to Iceland in 1929.

Sveinsson believed art belongs in public spaces for ordinary citizens. He sculpted massive, stylized geometric figures honoring laborers (The Water Carrier, The Blacksmith) and visionary modern monuments such as Gegnum hljóðmúrinn (Through the Sound Barrier). He designed his own dome-shaped modernist studio home, Ásmundarsafn, in Laugardalur, which now operates as a public sculpture museum.