The National Gallery of Iceland — Attraction in Reykjavik

The National Gallery of Iceland is an art museum which is shared across two locations. This is the main gallery located in the early 20th-century ice house building along Fríkirkjuvegur street facing Tjörnin Lake.

The second location, makes use of the Culture House (also referred to as the House of Collections), early 20th-century library on Hverfisgata street just a few minutes walk from here. Opening hours are 10am to 5pm daily while entry ticket (2400kr for adults, 1200kr students) provides access to both locations as well.

We visited both the National Gallery of Iceland and the House of Collections during a recent visit to Iceland. Both focus on 19th and 20th century artworks by Icelandic artists which are spaced out across several floors within the two museums. The House of Culture location contains a much larger collection. We found the exhibitions at both museums interesting and worth visiting for art lovers who plan to spend time sightseeing...

Whether you are an art enthusiast or not, visiting an art gallery when you find yourself in another country is part of the cultural exploration. I visited the National Galery of Iceland a few days ago. The gallery had 3 different exhibitions of modern art, and I was able to view all exhibits and read about the artists in less than an hour. As I am not an art critic, I cannot comment on the exhibits, but on the overall experience: it was fine, but I would expect more. With this being the national gallery, I would expect to see some sections with permanent collections and some temporary ones - to be fair, both aforementioned categories existed but with limited exhibits. There is also a cafeteria and a small area for kids to draw together with the cloakroom. Nevertheless, if you buy a city card, I would suggest putting this as part of your places to visit within the 24/48-hour...

I never thought I would say this, but you can probably just skip the national gallery. Tiny, and they haven't even bother to add English descriptions to anything.

As much as I love museums, I do not understand how they can justify an admission price of 2,000 crowns for only about 2 dozen paintings. There's almost nothing in this museum, I've seen larger private art galleries on shopping streets.

What I find especially baffling is that they talk about how they can only display a tiny selection of the countless paintings they have because of a lack of space. Yet the largest room by far in the museum is entirely taken up by a single video exhibit. They could triple the amount of art they're displaying by not picking such a large video display. I don't understand how they can justify that. Especially at the price to get in, when many of the greatest galleries in Europe cost...