The exhibition AKADEMIA is the first of two planned exhibitions by the Sveinn Björnsson Museum, to mark the occasion of what would have been Sveinn Björnsson's 100th birthday next year. This, the museum's 11th exhibition in Sveinshús in Grindavík, is about Sveinn Björnsson's beginnings as an artist: the sailor who „had a vision“ during the winter fishing season on the Halamiðir in 1948, which gradually led to his transformation from sailor to artist. It is also about the complex relationship between Sveinn and his artist cousin, Júlíana Sveinsdóttir, who was his ACADEMY, just as the sea was. Thirdly, ACADEMIA is about Sveinn's period of study at the ACADEMY itself in Copenhagen during the winter of 1956–57, which culminated in a month-long school trip to Italy in the spring and a subsequent „summer school“, which Sveinn combined with his family's summer stay at Juliána's house in Horneby, North Sealand. Thus, Sveinn Björnsson's AKADEMIA was threefold on his path into the art world: THE SEA • JÚLÍANA SVEINSDÓTIR • THE KING'S ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS, COPENHAGEN.

The other exhibition for the 100th anniversary will be staged next year and will focus on the final phase of the artistic career, when abstraction had taken over in the form of 'artistic fantasy', as the artist called it.

Júlíana's contribution is significant to the AKADEMÍU exhibition. The Sveinssafn preserves a large number of her works and a substantial part of her furniture from her summer house in Horneby, which Sveinn placed in Sveinshús. When a recent, more detailed registration and analysis of the Sveinssafn's collection revealed that it preserved paintings by Juliana's friends who, in their time, campaigned for the advancement of women in the Copenhagen art scene in the first half of the last century and all of whom had a connection to Horneby, eventually dubbed the 'Horneby Painters' by art historians, it was considered self-evident to address this aspect in the exhibition and thereby deepen Juliána's contribution. This has in turn led to the exhibition's observation or idea that Sveinn Björnsson can be seen as the last of the Horneby Painters.

Accordingly, the exhibition AKADEMIA sets itself apart from all other exhibitions by the museum to date, as it now features works by 9 artists: 5 men and 4 women. The artists whose works are featured in the exhibition are: Sveinn Björnsson 117 pictures, Júlíana Sveinsdóttir 16 pictures, Carl Andreasen 9, Ebba Carstensen 4, Gunnlaugur Scheving 3, Vera Nilsson 2, Elof Risiby 2, Astrid Holm 1 and Henrik Vagn Jensen 1. All these artists are connected to the theme of the exhibition in various ways.

A total of 155 images were selected for the exhibition, either to be hung on the walls of the exhibition rooms (67) or on display panels intended to convey the exhibition's theme (88). The museum's collection was used in the design of the exhibition; letters and photographs have been catalogued in recent terms. The designer of the exhibition, the exhibition panels, and the exhibition catalogue published for this occasion is Erlendur Sveinsson.