The museum has a unique collection of approximately 550 works of art, from the greatest masters of Icelandic art to lesser-known artists. Founded in 1963, it was the first art museum in Iceland to open outside the capital. Bjarnveig Bjarnadóttir and her sons Loftur and Bjarni Markús may justly be said to have laid the cornerstone for the LÁ Art Museum with a generous donation of works of art from their collection in 1963. Their initial gift comprised 41 works of art, and they continued to donate works to the museum until 1986 – when the collection amounted to 75 works of art. It contains works of the greatest masters of Icelandic painting in the first half of the twentieth century: 19 paintings by Ásgrímur Jónsson, and works by Kjarval, Gunnlaugur Scheving, Jón Stefánsson and Þorvaldur Skúlason among others. Bjarnveig’s taste is noteworthy, as is her sense of new trends, as shown in her later gifts. She paid attention to the work of abstract artists (Hörður Ágústsson and Kjartan Guðjónsson) but also devoted a lot of effort to the works of Icelandic women, such as Björg Þorsteinsdóttir, Þorbjörg Höskuldsdóttir and Ragnheiður Jónsdóttir.