Madrid’s Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum has launched a new temporary exhibition dedicated to Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi, known for imbuing domestic life with a sense of mystery. The exhibition, the largest retrospective of his work to date in Spain, features 89 oil paintings and drawings, and is a collaboration with the Kunsthaus Zürich, curated by Clara Marcellán.
Hammershøi, a contemporary of the avant-garde movements, deliberately charted his own course. The exhibition, titled ‘The Eye That Listens,’ runs at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza until , almost two decades after a significant retrospective at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona in 2007.
Who was Hammershøi: the painter of silence, austerity and mystery
Wilhelm Hammershøi was born in Copenhagen in 1864 into a well-to-do merchant family. He displayed an early interest in art, beginning to paint at the age of eight, as attested to by a letter from a teacher at the art school he attended, who described him as “unique and incomprehensible” with great talent.
At 21, he held his first exhibition, immediately establishing his signature style: grey colours, solitary figures, dark walls, empty rooms, some furniture, and right angles. In 1891, he married Ida Ilsted, the sister of a friend and colleague, and she would become a recurring subject in his paintings, often depicted from behind, alongside his brother-in-law Peter.
Contemporary of the avant-garde, but indifferent to them
Little is known about the personal life of Wilhelm Hammershøi, but it is clear he was a contemporary of artistic movements like Impressionism, Fauvism, and the various avant-gardes. However, he remained indifferent to these trends, continuing to cultivate his own style, focused on everyday life and characterized by a simple, classical aesthetic, with a palette of greys, greens, and browns.
His work is often described as conveying a sense of melancholy, and beyond his domestic scenes, he also painted portraits of people from his time and urban landscapes of his native Copenhagen. His treatment of interiors and effects of light have led to comparisons with 17th-century Dutch painters and a foreshadowing of the work of Edward Hopper.
Hammershøi has experienced a resurgence in popularity in recent decades due to the serenity, silence, and comfort his spaces evoke, alongside a subtle sense of unease. He mastered the technique of the Rückenfigur – depicting figures from behind – inviting the viewer to share the subject’s perspective. Examples of this technique can also be found in Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer above the Sea of Fog and Salvador Dalí’s Girl at the Window.
Guided tours of the exhibition will be available on Saturdays at 5:30 PM and Sundays at 12:00 PM, beginning , and lasting one hour. Tickets, including the tour fee of €9, can be purchased online, at the museum’s ticket office, or by telephone at +34 917 911 370.
