Vilhelm Hammershøi: Silence

Masterpieces by the Danish symbolist Vilhelm Hammershøi, whose interiors and portraits enjoy international renown today. Painted simply and in muted colours, they have fascinated viewers ever since the painter's rediscovery in the 1990s.
Most of Vilhelm Hammershøi's paintings depict rooms inside the various Copenhagen apartments he inhabited. With sunlight pouring through windows or open doors, Hammershøi composes solemn interiors worked in tones of blue, white, and gray. Silence permeates these genre paintings without a narrative, characterized by their powerful stillness and reduced colour palette. He has been called the "painter of solitude and light" and has been the focus of international exhibitions ever since his re-discovery in the 1990s. This focused presentation brings together a selection of masterpieces by the artist dated between 1901 and 1914.

Vilhelm Hammershøi, *1864, †1916 in Kopenhagen. Dänischer Maler, bekannt für seine poetischen und stillen Porträts und Interieurs. Musée d'Orsay, Paris, 1997; Guggenheim, New York, 1998; Hamburger Kunsthalle, 2003; The Royal Academy of London, 2008.