More Hamar

I’ve had some luck in researching Raymond MacIntyre’s portrait of Haraldur Hamar c 1923, he’s the distinctive looking man with the great brows.

Hamar was born in Reykjavik in 1892. He was the son of a poet and a headmaster, Steingrimur Thorsteinsson, and later changed his name from Thorsteinsson to Hamar.

A Reference Librarian at the National Library of Iceland found two articles about Hamar, you can see them under the following links. They are of course in Icelandic, but we can see that Hamar was painted more than once.

http://timarit.is/view_page_init.jsp?pageId=3314914
http://timarit.is/view_page_init.jsp?pageId=3303980


In Osbert Sitwell’s biography: Left Hand, Right Hand!: an autobiography, London 1951 in the fifth volume he writes about Hamar, who associated with the Bloomsbury group in London, they called him Iceland.

I’d love to catch up with any Icelandic speakers, is there someone out there keen to translate this article?

Haraldur Hamar

It was brought to my attention the other day that I, like Haraldur Hamar, can raise one eyebrow. Hamar is the impish subject of one of Raymond McIntyre’s most penetrating and confrontational portraits. An Icelandic writer and snappy dresser, Hamar had a penchant for nice ties which didn’t escape the attention of this reviewer...
You can read the full review on Papers Past.

Raymond McIntyre, Haraldur Hamar, 1923 Oil on hardboard, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, purchased 1983

We don't have a lot of information about this enigmatic Icelander in our collection but we'd love to know more! Any tip-offs or leads would be much appreciated. - Julia Waite