Vilhelm Hammershøi
With the Future as Horizon

The exhibition will feature more than 70 works from Denmark and abroad, encompassing Hammershøi's familiar subjects — interiors, portraits and landscapes. With a focus on the phenomena and formal language of the works, the exhibition explores how Hammershøi's treatment of light, line and repetition points forward to the modern art of the twentieth century.

Towards Modernity

Hammershøi stands out as a solitary figure on the Danish art scene at a time marked by upheaval and renewal on one hand, and nostalgic longing on the other. When we look at his works, we are rarely in doubt as to who painted them. We recognise the undisturbed depictions of a room, a landscape, a building, a figure seen from behind. Silence resounds through Hammershøi's works, rendered in a refined palette of predominantly grey, black and white tones. This apparent harmony connects to the Golden Age painters' idyllic depictions of everyday life, yet in Hammershøi's work the harmonious image is disrupted by an ambivalence:

We look at a work and feel both at home and shut out at once. The open rooms do not invite us in, but ask us to observe from a distance. Hammershøi's works hold a complexity that points towards future horizons and the twentieth century, rather than back into history.