Culture and Living
| Iceland Monitor
| Wed 13 Jan 2016
| 13.15 GMT
| Modified
19 Apr 2016
16.11
Museum gets photos of Iceland from 1919
Matthías Jochumsson watering his garden with his daughter in Akureyri, 1919.
The National Museum of Iceland has acquired an impressive collection of previously unknown photographs of life in early-20th-century Iceland.
The 417 photographs, presented in two albums, were taken by a group of five young Swedes visiting Iceland in 1919. The images show people, buildings and landscapes and are most taken in North Iceland.
The new collection includes photographs of Icelandic poet Matthías Jochumsson, most famous nowadays for having written the lyrics to Iceland’s national anthem. They are likely among the last ever pictures taken of Jochumsson, as he died a year later in 1920.
A page from one of the albums.
