Vilhelm Hammershøi
Encyclopedia
Vilhelm Hammershøi often written in English Vilhelm Hammershoi (15 May 186413 February 1916), was a Danish
painter
. He is known for his poetic, low-key portraits and interiors. In 1997, Denmark issued a postage stamp
in his honor.
, Denmark
. The son of a well-to-do merchant, Christian Hammershøi, and his wife, Frederikke (née Rentzmann), Hammershøi studied drawing from the age of eight with Niels Christian Kierkegaard and Holger Grønvold, as well as painting with Vilhelm Kyhn
, before embarking on studies with Frederik Vermehren and others at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. From 1883 to 1885, he studied with Peder Severin Krøyer at the Independent Study Schools, then debuted in the Charlottenborg Exhibition in the spring of 1885 with Portrait of a Young Girl (his sister, Anna; Pierre Auguste Renoir is reported to have admired this painting). Hammershøi married Ida Ilsted in 1891.
, finding London
especially atmospheric in providing locations for his highly understated work, suffused as it was at the time with a fog
gy, coal smoke polluted atmosphere. His work in consequence has been described as "Monet meets the Camden School".
Hammershøi's wife figures in many of his interiors, often depicted from behind. Ida is also the model in many similar works by her brother, Peter Ilsted
. Peter and Vilhelm were lifelong friends, business partners, and colleagues. The Metropolitan Museum of Art
held an exhibition of their collective works in 2001, and there was an exhibition of his works in 2008 at the Royal Academy of London.
and in London
(he painted two exteriors of the British Museum
between 1905 and 1906) are devoid of people, a quality they share with his landscapes.
and Rainer Maria Rilke
, who both remarked on his retiring manner and reluctance to talk. After a trip to Paris, his work became overly detailed. According to art critic Souren Melikian, his "painterly skill remained but the magic was lost."
Hammershøi’s melancholic vision has now regained its place in the public consciousness. He is now one of the best-known artists in Scandinavia
, and comprehensive retrospectives of his work have been organized by the Musée d'Orsay
in Paris and the Guggenheim
Museum in New York. In 2008, the Royal Academy of London hosted the first major exhibition in Britain of Hammershøi’s work, Vilhelm Hammershøi: The Poetry of Silence.
television
documentary
, Michael Palin and the Mystery of Hammershoi, with the British comedian and writer Michael Palin
. In the programme, Palin, fascinated by Hammershøi, whose pictures he conceived as having a distinct enigmatic coolness and distance about them, sets out to unlock the mysteries and find out about the background of Hammershøi. Palin, wanting to know of his inspirations and the reason for these mystical pictures, started his search in Hayward Gallery
in London, goes to Amsterdam and finally to Copenhagen.
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
. He is known for his poetic, low-key portraits and interiors. In 1997, Denmark issued a postage stamp
Postage stamp
A postage stamp is a small piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are made from special paper, with a national designation and denomination on the face, and a gum adhesive on the reverse side...
in his honor.
Life
Vilhelm Hammershøi was born in 1864 in CopenhagenCopenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
, Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
. The son of a well-to-do merchant, Christian Hammershøi, and his wife, Frederikke (née Rentzmann), Hammershøi studied drawing from the age of eight with Niels Christian Kierkegaard and Holger Grønvold, as well as painting with Vilhelm Kyhn
Vilhelm Kyhn
Peter Vilhelm Carl Kyhn, was a Danish landscape painter who belonged to the generation of national romantic painters immediately after the Danish Golden Age and before the Modern Breakthrough...
, before embarking on studies with Frederik Vermehren and others at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. From 1883 to 1885, he studied with Peder Severin Krøyer at the Independent Study Schools, then debuted in the Charlottenborg Exhibition in the spring of 1885 with Portrait of a Young Girl (his sister, Anna; Pierre Auguste Renoir is reported to have admired this painting). Hammershøi married Ida Ilsted in 1891.
Artistic career
Hammershøi worked mainly in his native city, painting portraits, architecture, and interiors. He also journeyed to the surrounding countryside and locations beyond, where he painted rolling hills, stands of trees, farm houses, and other landscapes. He is most celebrated for his interiors, many of which he painted in Copenhagen at Strandgade 30 (where he lived with his wife from 1898 to 1909, and Strandgade 25 (where they lived from 1913 to 1916). He travelled widely in EuropeEurope
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, finding London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
especially atmospheric in providing locations for his highly understated work, suffused as it was at the time with a fog
Fog
Fog is a collection of water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air at or near the Earth's surface. While fog is a type of stratus cloud, the term "fog" is typically distinguished from the more generic term "cloud" in that fog is low-lying, and the moisture in the fog is often generated...
gy, coal smoke polluted atmosphere. His work in consequence has been described as "Monet meets the Camden School".
Hammershøi's wife figures in many of his interiors, often depicted from behind. Ida is also the model in many similar works by her brother, Peter Ilsted
Peter Ilsted
Peter Ilsted was a leading Danish artist and printmaker. Ilsted, Carl Holsoe and Ilsted’s brother-in-law, Vilhelm Hammershøi, were the leading artists in early 20th century Denmark. All three artists were members of ‘The Free Exhibition’, a progressive art society created around 1890. They are...
. Peter and Vilhelm were lifelong friends, business partners, and colleagues. The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
held an exhibition of their collective works in 2001, and there was an exhibition of his works in 2008 at the Royal Academy of London.
Technique
Hammershøi's paintings are best described as muted in tone. He refrained from employing bright colors (except in his very early academic works), opting always for a limited palette consisting of greys, as well as desaturated yellows, greens, and other dark hues. His tableaux of figures turned away from the viewer project an air of slight tension and mystery, while his exteriors of grand buildings in CopenhagenCopenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
and in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
(he painted two exteriors of the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
between 1905 and 1906) are devoid of people, a quality they share with his landscapes.
Critical acclaim
Hammershøi's early works, with their simplicity and recording of the "banality of everyday life", enjoyed critical acclaim. He was sought out by artists and literary figures of the time, among them Emil NoldeEmil Nolde
Emil Nolde was a German painter and printmaker. He was one of the first Expressionists, a member of Die Brücke, and is considered to be one of the great oil painting and watercolour painters of the 20th century. He is known for his vigorous brushwork and expressive choice of colors...
and Rainer Maria Rilke
Rainer Maria Rilke
René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke , better known as Rainer Maria Rilke, was a Bohemian–Austrian poet. He is considered one of the most significant poets in the German language...
, who both remarked on his retiring manner and reluctance to talk. After a trip to Paris, his work became overly detailed. According to art critic Souren Melikian, his "painterly skill remained but the magic was lost."
Hammershøi’s melancholic vision has now regained its place in the public consciousness. He is now one of the best-known artists in Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
, and comprehensive retrospectives of his work have been organized by the Musée d'Orsay
Musée d'Orsay
The Musée d'Orsay is a museum in Paris, France, on the left bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, an impressive Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1915, including paintings, sculptures, furniture,...
in Paris and the Guggenheim
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is a well-known museum located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States. It is the permanent home to a renowned collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions...
Museum in New York. In 2008, the Royal Academy of London hosted the first major exhibition in Britain of Hammershøi’s work, Vilhelm Hammershøi: The Poetry of Silence.
BBC documentary
In 2005, Hammershøi's life and oeuvre was featured in a BBCBBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
, Michael Palin and the Mystery of Hammershoi, with the British comedian and writer Michael Palin
Michael Palin
Michael Edward Palin, CBE FRGS is an English comedian, actor, writer and television presenter best known for being one of the members of the comedy group Monty Python and for his travel documentaries....
. In the programme, Palin, fascinated by Hammershøi, whose pictures he conceived as having a distinct enigmatic coolness and distance about them, sets out to unlock the mysteries and find out about the background of Hammershøi. Palin, wanting to know of his inspirations and the reason for these mystical pictures, started his search in Hayward Gallery
Hayward Gallery
The Hayward Gallery is an art gallery within the Southbank Centre, part of an area of major arts venues on the South Bank of the River Thames, in central London, England. It is sited adjacent to the other Southbank Centre buildings and also the Royal National Theatre and British Film Institute...
in London, goes to Amsterdam and finally to Copenhagen.
Exhibitions
- Vilhelm Hammershøi: The Poetry of Silence, oyal Academy|Royal Academy, Sackler Wing of Galleries, ondon, UK, 28 June—7 September 2008
- Vilhelm Hammershøi: The Poetry of Silence, The National Museum of Western ArtThe National Museum of Western ArtThe is the premier public art gallery in Japan specializing in art from the Western tradition.The Museum is located in the museum and zoo complex in Ueno Park in Taito, central Tokyo. This popular Tokyo museum is also known by the English acronym NMWA .-NMWA history:The NMWA was established on...
, TokyoTokyo, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
, Japan ( - 7 November 2008)
Further reading
- Vad, Poul (1992). Vilhelm Hammershøi and Danish Art at the Turn of the Century. New Haven: Yale University Press.
External links
- Hammershøi: the poetry of silence (gallery) at The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
- Hammershoi gallery at Art in the Picture
- Hammershoi - World of Interiors by Michael PalinMichael PalinMichael Edward Palin, CBE FRGS is an English comedian, actor, writer and television presenter best known for being one of the members of the comedy group Monty Python and for his travel documentaries....
- Hammershoi 2008 exhibition at the Royal Academy of London
- Hammershoi entry in Denmark's artist database (JavaScriptJavaScriptJavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....
) - Hammershoi.co.uk – prints seller, but biography and image galleries