Selardalur Art Farm

Samuel Jonsson farmed in Selardalur and started making art in his sixties, working in concrete with no training and no audience, producing figures, a church, a house and a lion fountain copied from a picture of the Alhambra in Granada - a courtyard in southern Spain rebuilt from memory of an illustration at the end of a Westfjords valley. He died in 1969 and the works decayed badly before restoration efforts began in the 1990s. They stand where he left them, in an emptied valley where the last farms were abandoned. The road out is long gravel along a fjord, which is why almost nobody comes.

What you actually see

• Concrete figures by an untrained farmer - made from his sixties onward.
• An Alhambra lion fountain - copied from an illustration.
• A church and house he built - alongside the sculptures.
• An abandoned valley - the farms around are long gone.

When to go

June to August; the road is impassable much of the year. Two to three hours.

Honest expectations

The drive is long, slow and gravel with no services at the end. The works are weathered and restoration is ongoing, so some are in poor condition. There is nothing else in the valley - no toilets, no cafe, no shelter.

Nearby

Bildudalur is back along the fjord; Dynjandi is east.