Helgi Þorgils Friðjónsson

It is only three years and half a century since Helgi Þorgils Friðjónsson held his first solo exhibition and a year later, in 1976, he had completed his studies at the School of Fine Arts and Handicrafts and held Hl Hollands for further studies at De Vrije Academie in The Hague. There were many differences in international art, and so it had developed that several Icelandic artists had become involved in the conflict, and the battle line between the old and the new did not just run through New York, London and Paris - as had been the case for most of the twentieth century - rather, it meandered further, even took a detour through Reykjavík. While Helgi was in The Hague, other Icelandic artists who had settled in the Netherlands were invited to hold one of the opening exhibitions of the new contemporary art museum in Paris: Center Georges Pompidou: the painters Hreini Friðfinnsson, Þórðr Ben Sveinssson and the brothers Kristján and Sigurður Guðmundsson. It was no longer a shame to be born in the countryside in Iceland.