On December 30, 1913, he was appointed by Prime Minister Hannes Hafstein as one of the five people on the committee that designed the Flag of Iceland.
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In 1900 he was awarded a grant by the Icelandic Parliament to study art in Denmark, and he trained there from 1895 to 1899.
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In this respect the work of Þorláksson and Jónsson played a role similar to that of the Heidelberg School in Australia (slightly earlier) and the Group of Seven, Emily Carr and Tom Thomson in Canada (a little later).