Portrait of an unknown:Gina Berndtson in the History of Art in the Canary Islands, 1947-1948
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51349/veg.2026.2.06Keywords:
Women artits, Art and Gender, 20th century women painters, History of Art in the Canary IslandsAbstract
This article deals with the life and artistic career of Gina Berndtson, one of the most unknown and enigmatic figures in the art collection of the Cabildo de Gran Canaria. The German painter arrived in Gran Canaria in 1947, extending her stay for almost a year, during which time she painted and exhibited at the Círculo Mercantil and El Museo Canario, becoming the first woman to hold a solo exhibition on the island. Both exhibitions turned out to be a great success, receiving very good reviews from the local press and leaving an interesting collection of works on the island. Her life journey between Germany, Italy, Sweden, Spain, South Africa and the United States is a story full of unknowns and questions.
Downloads
References
Alemán, Ángeles. (2019): Pino Ojeda. Biblioteca de Artistas Canarios, 59. Viceconsejería de Turismo, Cultura y Deportes, Gobierno de Canarias: Islas Canarias.
Almeida, Pedro (1993): Arencibia. Jesús González Arencibia. Biblioteca de Artistas Canarios, 20. Viceconsejería de Turismo, Cultura y Deportes, Gobierno de Canarias: Islas Canarias.
Castro, Federico; Peralta, Yolanda y Quesada, Ana María (2008): El entramado comercial e institucional, en Castro, F.; Peralta, Y. y Quesada, A. M., Tradición y experimentación plástica. Dinámicas artísticas 1939-2000. Santa Cruz de Tenerife: Viceconsejería de Cultura y Deportes: 91-117.
Betancor, Fernando (2017): El arte en El Museo Canario: arqueología de una colección artística, en XXII Coloquio de Historia Canario-Americana (2016).
Bowlt, John E. (2008, 22 de abril): Nikolai Zagrekov and the New Objectivity en Nikolai Zagrekov. http://www.zagrekov.com/eng/publications/
Campos Oramas, Javier (1996): Las exposiciones regionales de Bellas Artes, también llamadas, pomposamente, bienales, Anuario de Estudios Atlánticos, 42, 455-515
Degot, Ekaterina (2008, 22 de abril): Different Things: Soviet Realist Painting in the Context of the New Objectivity of the 1920s en Nikolai Zagrekov. http://www.zagrekov.com/eng/publications/
Fernández, Carmen (2000): Exposiciones realizadas en Las Palmas de Gran Canaria durante la década de los cuarenta del siglo XX. Memoria de Licenciatura. Las Palmas de Gran Canaria: Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
González, Franck (2018): Los años nómadas (1927-1957), en Allen, J.; González, F.; Santa Ana, M. La Escuela Luján Pérez. 100 años. Gran Canaria: Ayuntamiento de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria: 45-62
González, Franck (2020): Cano 33. Una historia de la Casa de Galdós. Cabildo de Gran Canaria: Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
Nochlin, Linda. (1971): ¿Por qué no ha habido grandes mujeres artistas? En Valverde, I (Ed.) (2020), Situar en la Historia. Mujeres, Arte y Sociedad. Madrid: Ediciones Akal: 25-49.
Peralta, Yolanda (2012). Presencia y valoración de las mujeres artistas en Canarias (1950-1970), en García Morales, L. T. (coord.): Jane Millares Sall. Diario de una pintora. Las Palmas de Gran Canaria: San Martín Centro de Cultura Contemporánea, CAAM. Cabildo de Gran Canaria: 20-29
Peralta, Yolanda (2014): Diccionario biográfico de mujeres artistas en Canarias. Ediciones Idea: Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
Pollock, Griselda (2013): Visión y diferencia. Feminismo, feminidad e historias del arte. Buenos Aires: Fiordo Editorial. (Primera publicación inglesa: Vision and Difference: Femininity, Feminism and the Histories of Art, Routledge, 1988).
Scott, Joan Wallach (1986): Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis, The American Historical Review, vol. 91: 1053–1075
VVAA. (1952). Svenskt konstnärslexikon. Allhems Förlag: Malmö
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Maria de las Nieves Delisau Jorge

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The articles are open access distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) Spain 4.0 license. Authors who publish in this journal agree with the following terms:
a) Authors retain the copyright and guarantee the journal the right to be the first publication of the work as well as licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with a recognition of the authorship of the work and the Initial publication in this magazine.
b) Authors may separately establish additional agreements for the non-exclusive distribution of the version of the work published in the journal (for example, place it in an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with recognition of its initial publication in this magazine.
c) Authors are allowed and encouraged to disseminate their work electronically (for example, in institutional repositories or on their own website) before and during the submission process, as it may result in productive exchanges, as well as a earliest and largest citation of published works (See The Effect of Open Access).
Deprecated: json_decode(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($json) of type string is deprecated in /var/www/vhosts/revistavegueta.ulpgc.es/httpdocs/ojs/plugins/generic/citations/CitationsPlugin.php on line 68

