Janus Kamban

Since 1970 he has lived in a house on the coast (Yviri við Strond in Tórshavn) with a view to Nólsoy, built according to his specifications in the classical style, with black asphalt outside walls and grass roof. At the age of 85, he fell off his bicycle and broke his right hand and it has not healed properly, putting an end to his career as an artist.

His first monumental work was Móðurmálið (mother tongue), made in 1948 from local basalt, as an anniversary memorial for V U Hammershaimb, 1846, creator of the Faroese written language. For some time, the sculpture was hidden behind tall bushes but has once again been made visible and can be seen close to the Faroese National Library.

During the Second World War he had to remain in German-occupied Denmark since the Faroe Islands were occupied by Britain. However, in August 1945, Kamban returned to the Faroe Islands on the first ship, the Aarhus. Once there, he immediately established himself as a sculptor.

Kamban is the first and most important sculptor in the Faroe Islands. In 1930 he went to Copenhagen to the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts to study painting, but soon changed his direction and attended the School of Sculpture in the Art Academy from 1932 to 1935 and from 1938 to 1940, where he studied under Professor Einar Utzon-Frank. Study tours in the 1930s led him to Paris, Florence, Oslo and Stockholm.

Janus Kamban (10 September 1913 in Tórshavn – 2 May 2009) was a Faroese sculptor and last living representative from the "first generation" of professional artists in the Faroe Islands.

However, the bronze bust for the politician and lawyer Niels Winther (1822–92) is clearly visible at the entrance to the national library, and the 3.8 × 2.9 metre cement relief Søgumaðurin (the storyteller) of 1956 can be seen on the facade of a local school in Tórshavn. Other monuments produced by him can be found all over the Faroe Islands, and his subjects are common everyday practical aspects of island life: seamen, islanders, sheep, pilot whales, the Faroese chain dance and so on. He used plaster, cement, baked clay, wood, basalt and bronze. Two of his sculptures, Sheep with two lambs (cement, 1955) and Four whales (1986), are exhibited at the Faroese Art Museum.