1864 -1916 · Copenhagen, Strandgade and poetry of silence

Half-open doors, women with backs and luminous grays make Vilhelm Hammershøi the great modern painter of interior silence.

Vilhelm Hammershøi was born in Copenhagen in 1864 and died there in 1916. Introduced to drawing at a very young age, he studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts then at the Free School of Peder Severin Krøyer. From the beginning, his restricted palette and austere portraits astonished an artistic environment attached to a more demonstrative finish. Hammershøi traveled to Berlin, Dresden, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and especially London, whose facades, empty squares and veiled atmosphere corresponded to his sensitivity. Hammershøi traveled to Berlin, Dresden, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and especially London, whose facades, empty squares and veiled atmosphere corresponded to his sensitivity. His real laboratory, however, remained the accommodation he shared with his wife Ida at Strandgade 30, from 1898 to 1909. He chose this apartment for its aligned doors, its gray walls, his tall windows and white woodwork. Dust in the sun's rays almost reduces the world to a rectangle of light passing through an empty room. In Interior with Young Woman Seen from the Back or Rest, Ida does not recount any precise action: motionless, absorbed, she becomes a presence as mysterious as furniture and thresholds. Hammershøi voluntarily moves objects, simplifies spaces and modulates whites, grays, browns and blacks. His pieces are therefore not domestic documents, but mental constructions where opening and closing, presence and absence remain in tension. He also paints landscapes, architecture and portraits with the same restraint. Recognized during his lifetime in several international exhibitions, he left a work whose apparent silence opens a lasting field to the modern imagination. The "Vilhelm Hammershøi" selection notably compares Dust in the Sun's Rays and Interior with Young Woman seen from behind. His reading favors light.

Hammershøi paints less what happens in a room than what could happen: the light, the door and the silence remain waiting.