Reykjavik Art Museum
Three buildings, one museum, a century of Icelandic art under one roof.
The Reykjavik Art Museum is actually spread across three distinct venues around the city — Hafnarhús, Kjarvalsstaðir, and Ásmundarsafn — each with its own character and collection focus. Together they form the largest art museum in Iceland, and a single ticket gets you into all three. The museum is the central institution for Icelandic visual art and regularly hosts major international shows alongside deep dives into the country's own artistic heritage.
The address on Tryggvagata corresponds to Hafnarhús, the flagship venue housed in a renovated harbour warehouse that still feels industrial and cool. It's the place to see contemporary and experimental work, and it's also home to a large permanent collection of works by Erró, the prolific Icelandic pop artist whose dense, politically-charged canvases cover entire walls. Kjarvalsstaðir, the other main gallery, focuses on the landscape paintings of Jóhannes S. Kjarval, one of Iceland's most beloved artists — his luminous, almost mystical interpretations of the lava fields are hard to forget. Ásmundarsafn, set in a sculptor's studio in the Laugardalur area, is smaller and quirkier, dedicated to the sculptor Ásmundur Sveinsson.
Hafnarhús is worth building a proper visit around — allow at least an hour and a half here, more if you're genuinely into contemporary work. Thursday evenings the museum stays open until 10pm, which is a genuinely pleasant time to visit when the daytime crowds have thinned. The old Harbour district is right outside, so it pairs naturally with a walk along the waterfront and dinner somewhere in the neighbourhood afterward.