The Jóla-Sisters

Rán Flygenring is an award-winning writer and illustrator. In October 2023 she won the prestigious Nordic Council Children and Young People's Literature Prize. On this occasion the National Gallery is proud to show some of her work in the newly established project space at the House of Collections.

The exhibition features prints made from linocuts that Rán created in collaboration with writer and artist Hallgrímur Helgason. Together they created the book The Jule-sisters.

The Jule-sisters is a book of Christmas poems by Hallgrímur Helgason and illustrations by Rán Flygenring, which is based on Jóhannes úr Kötlum's book, Christmas Comes.

In this book you will find the latest news about Grýla and the Christmas cat, when all of a sudden the elated daughters of Grýla, sisters of the Icelandic Christmas lads, step out of the thousand-year-long shadow of their brothers and march to town, each with their own songs and pranks in the pipeline: Bjalla, Grýlurós, Litla ljós, Fantasía, Stelpustoð, Töskubuska, Bokka, Tertuglöð, Fiturönd, Augasteinastara, Áttavillt, Svangatöng and Kortasníkja.

Rán Flygenring first established herself as Reykjavík City’s court illustrator in 2011 and has since then drawn everything between heaven and earth; stamps and birds, whale reports, gender equality, weddings and other business fairs, volcanic eruptions and women.

Next to the Nordic Council Children and Young People's Literature Prize Rán has also been awarded the German-French Children's Book Prize, the German Youth Literature Prize, the Reykjavík Children's Book Prize.