Svavar Gudnason Artwork valuations, appraisals and auction estimates

Svavar Gudnason (1909 - 1988) was an Icelandic painter active in the avant-garde COBRA movement. He was Iceland's leading avant-garde artist and one of Europe's most important painters of the 1940s and 1950s. Read the full biography

Svavar Gudnason (1909 - 1988) was an Icelandic painter active in the avant-garde COBRA movement. He was Iceland's leading avant-garde artist and one of Europe's most important painters of the 1940s and 1950s. He was born on 18 November 1909 in Höfn in Hornafjörður and grew up there. He was the son of Ólafar Þórdardóttir and Guðna Jónsson, a restaurateur. At the age of 18 he moved away from home, and while studying at the Co-operative School, he worked at various jobs. He met the famous group Cobra and was the first Icelandic artist to develop an abstract expressionist style. CoBrA was founded by Asger Jorn, Karen Appel, Constant Corneille, Christian Dotremont and Joseph Noiret in 1948 at Café Notre-Dame in Paris. Gudnason's works can be found in major modern art museums in Europe and Scandinavia, for example in Louisiana in Denmark and at the CoBrA Museum in the Netherlands.