It is with great joy that the gallery can announce a large donation of works by Mikines. No fewer than 17 pieces by the Faroese artist Sámal Joensen-Mikines (1906-1979) have been gifted to the Gallery. Among these works are large and small oil paintings, graphic art, sketches, and watercolour paintings. These include pieces often deemed his seminal works. The subjects depict Faroese and Danish landscapes, studies of the sea, city images, and café images.

In December 2021, the National Gallery of the Faroe Islands received eight paintings by Mikines from a private collector in Denmark who at the time donated them anonymously. It is this same collector that is now bestowing this great donation of Mikines paintings. We are pleased to announce that the benefactor is Birte Schultz-Lorentzen.

Birte Schultz-Lorentzen was Faroese by marriage and lived with Joanes Torkil Mortensen in Nærum, north of Copenhagen for nearly 50 years. Torkil was born and raised in the Faroe Islands but moved to Denmark at the age of 16. The couple had a fondness for visual art and music. It was art by Faroese artist Sámal Joensen-Mikines in particular that inspired great excitement in the couple, and they purchased many pieces for their home directly from Mikines. They bought upwards of 40 Mikines pieces over the years, adding them to an art collection of over a hundred pieces. In 1992, Birte arrangered a retrospective Mikines exhibition at Den Frie Exhibition Centre in Copenhagen, and the Mikines pieces have been lent out to exhibitions several other times, the latest being in 2021 at the Johannes Larsen Museum in Kerteminde. Birte and Torkil also took part in the induction of the National Gallery of the Faroe Islands in 1993, and they played an active part in the commemoration of Mikines’ centenary in 2006, shortly before Torkil’s passing.

“The National Gallery of the Faroe Islands accepts this enormous and wonderful gift with the utmost humility and respect and wishes to thank Birte Schultz-Lorentzen for this unique and priceless contribution that now becomes part of the great Faroese collection of art. It will be to the benefit and enjoyment for everyone interested in art in the Faroe Islands. The donation will be exhibited at the gallery sometime in the summer of 2024. In the meantime, the gallery is planning to host guided tours in the storage space in the near future, where the donation will be displayed to those interested”, says Karina Lykke Grand, managing director.

Here will you find photographic replicas of the donated pieces <<