Omniseek: People: Painter Louisa Matthiasdottir Died at 83

Louisa Matthiasdottir, a painter in postwar America, died Saturday. She was 83. Matthiasdottir, who was born in Reykjavik, Iceland, had her first solo show in 1948 at the Jane Street Gallery, New York's first artists' cooperative. She had moved to New York six years earlier and lived there until last year. Her similarly cryptic painting style reduced the world to a series of simple, blocky shapes and angled planes of clear, ringing color, all dispatched with a crisp, unfettered directness that allowed no reworking. Matthiasdottir's work included portraits and self-portraits, still lifes, interiors and light-filled paintings of the coastal landscape of Iceland.