The country’s most renowned artist painter, Johannes S. Kjarval, was brought up at Geitavik on the East Borgarfiord Bay after the age of four.  He kept returning to this colourful and picturesque area and spent a long time there painting.

He painted the present altarpiece of the Bakkafiord church, depicting Christ standing on the rocky Elf Mound just east of the village.  When the painter’s one-hundredth anniversary was celebrated in 1885, the villagers built and unveiled his memorial standing just above the farm Geitavik, where he spent his youth.