Louisa Mattiasdottir

Louisa Matthiasdottir was born in 1917 in Reykjavik, Iceland. She showed an interest in art as a young girl. She studied in Denmark and was a pupil of artist, Marcel Gromaire in Paris. Her paintings from the 1930s show an interest in fauvism as well as cubism. She established herself as a leading figure in the Icelandic avant-garde in Reykjavík called Unuhús)

Louisa Matthiasdottir experimented with many subjects and style but became known for her bold colors and simple brushwork. She painted self portraits, still lifes, interiors, and Icelandic landscapes, all distinguished by their simple, geometric shapes and flat planes of crisp, bold colors.

She came to New York in 1942 and had her first solo show at the Jane Street Gallery in 1948. Shortly after her arrival in the United States, she met Leland Bell, whom she married in 1944. Sometimes they had double exhibitions together, and both showed at Robert Schoelkopf Gallery where she had seventeen solo shows between 1964 and 1991. (Source:  Askart.com)

Louisa Matthiasdottir’s uses a palette of tones of grey, white, and greens. Characteristic of Matthiasdottirs’s paintings, “Still Life” is a realistic, yet modernist depiction of a classic still life for which the artist is best known. She also painted horses. Her swift brushstrokes and shadowing create a representative image, yet use some modernist elements of color and flattening.

Matthiasdottir has a body of work and is acknowledged by the fine art community as an important and valuable artist. This painting is representative of her mid-career style for which she is well know. A recognizable still life such as this would inspire a competitive demand on the market, especially for a work of this condition, quality by the artist.  

The scarcity of Matthiasdottir’s work to the market, makes her work desireably to collectors. Matthiasdottirs’s values have been steadily rising in value over the past 20 years.The prices for modern paintings by women artists have been steadily increasing. While historically, works by their male male counterparts have always been more valuable on the art market, that is changing. Paintings by Helen Lundeberg, Emily Carr, and Georgia O’Keeffe demand some of the highest prices in The American art.