Image from Ian van Coller’s Fissure. Department of Special Collections, Memorial Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Iceland: An Exhibit in Special Collections
July 10 through October 2017
With the Libraries’ acquisition of Chester Thordarson’s collection in the late 1940s came many titles in Icelandic and about Iceland. Guest exhibit curators Peter Gorman and Todd Michelson-Ambelang have drawn on the Thordarson Collection, as well as other holdings of Special Collections, Memorial Library, Mills Music Library, and the Wisconsin Historical Society, to illustrate Iceland’s natural history, folklore, literature, print culture, and religion. From 16th-century Icelandic Bibles to a recent “intimate portrait of Icelandic ice” by photographer Ian Van Coller, the exhibit affords a glimpse into Iceland’s stark landscape and rich culture and – we hope – encourages viewers to explore further the Libraries’ strong holdings about the land of fire and ice.
Frontispiece from Icelandic legends collected by Jón Arnason (London, 1866). Special Collections.
Detail from John Gould’s illustration of the puffin. Thordarson Collection. Special Collections.