Erró – Portraits

“Almost all my paintings tell a story: the story of a person, a thing or a machine.”

Erró (Guðmundur Guðmundsson, b. 1932) is the best-known living Icelandic artist. He has been a leading practitioner of narrative figurative art since he first made his home in France after studying art in Reykjavík, Oslo and Florence. He has been active on the avant-garde art scene in Paris since 1958, and his work has been exhibited around the world. He lives and works in Paris, Thailand and Spain.

Erró – Mannlýsingar/Portraits is published to mark the 20th anniversary of Erró's donation of a huge collection of his art to the City of Reykjavík in 1989.  The year 2009 will be dedicated to this splendid gift from one of Iceland's most renowned artists, and the Reykjavík Art Museum holds new exhibitions and a programme of events to mark the occasion.  The book is published in conjunction with an exhibition of the same name, which opened on 28 May 2009.

The editor of the book is Danielle Kvaran, the first person appointed to a new research fellowship established at the Museum on the occasion of the anniversary. The book, and the exhibition of which she is curator, are the fruit of her extensive research into the Museum's Erró Collection, which is vast and wide-ranging. The Collection now comprises 3,000 works, and is still growing, as Erró has added various works of art and documents since the original donation was made twenty years ago.

The subject of the book/exhibition is Erró's portraits or “character descriptions,” spanning the period 1963-2007.  There are five main themes, reflecting the organisation of the show in the Museum's exhibition spaces: politics, art,  literature, music and science. In addition, five series of paintings are discussed in the latter half of the book: Les Monstres (Monsters), Les lettres d‘amour japonaises (Japanese Love Letters), Les Cosmonautes (Cosmonauts), Les Nord-Africaines (North-African Girls) and Les poupées (Dolls). Finally three films by Erró are discussed, to complete the overview of Erró's portraiture: Mary Monster, Stars and Faces.

Erró's works of art invariably entail a strong narrative element, and the portraits illustrated in the book are no exception. Erró has often been described as a reporter, historian, archivist or documentarist. He is a keen collector of images and documentary sources, and in his portraits he juxtaposes the most diverse visual references. The clash of images gives rise to complex narratives, which tend to have political overtones: Erró does not confine himself to the conventional American Pop Art approach of reflecting the surface of contemporary consumer society, but delves deeper in his narrative on canvas.

Danielle Kvaran writes a detailed and informative introduction, while the volume also includes articles and other contributions on each theme from Icelandic and other writers. The book is 160 pages in large format, allowing ample space for the lavish illustrations. Alongside the selected paintings, the book includes images of collages made by Erró before the works were painted at full scale; the book thus provides insight into the artist's working methods.

Erró – Mannlýsingar/Portraits is published simultaneously in Iceland and France, under a contract between Icelandic publisher Opna and French publishing house Hazan.