Painting restorer Gerdmar

LARS GERDMAR is the initiator and manager of the project which this society supports. He is an Icon Painter/Restorer and Independent scholar of Byzantine and Oriental Christian art. After basic studies in Byzantine painting 1976-79 he has, since 1980, been active as icon painter, since -86 as scholar and since -94 as painting restorer. As an Icon Painter he is considered to be the foremost in the Nordic countries and stands in the international frontline of this art. For fifteen years (1980-) he has, besides his artistic practise, been studying the history, austhetics, techniques and theology of Occidental and Byzantine art, privately supervised by Bo Ossian Lindberg, Professor Emeritus, Åbo Akademi University, Finland, who is an expert in materials and techniques of ancient European art, i.e. studies in different techniques of panel- and mural painting in tempera, in a secco- and a fresco as well as the history and practice of traditional pigments, a study which make part of Lars book Ansikte mot ansikte. Om de heliga ikonerna (Face to Face. On the Holy Icons), published 2007. 1990-94 he received private education in painting conservation from the restorers Åsa Sandberg and Magnus Wilhborg. He has participated in a number of conservation projects in Sweden and published several books and articles on Byzantine art. In 2002 he visited Ethiopia for the first time. Since 2005 he has been researching ancient Ethiopian sacred art, in situ all in all one and a half year. As manager of several expeditions in Ethiopia he has accomplished a preliminary inventory of damages to Ethiopian painting from the 6th to the 19th century and 2012 conducted a preliminary ocular and technical examination of the heritage site Yimrihane Kristos. Read more: Lars Gerdmar. Curriculum Vitae. Preleminary examination of Yimrihanne Kristos