Vilhelm Hammershøi

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Self-portrait, 1911
Vilhelm Hammershøi: Room with a young man reading , 1898,
Den Hirschsprungske Samling

Vilhelm Hammershøi (born May 15, 1864 in Copenhagen , † February 13, 1916 in Copenhagen) was a Danish painter and is considered a representative of symbolism . His melancholy interiors, portraits, landscapes and architecture are reminiscent of the American painter James McNeill Whistler , whom Hammershøi greatly admired. Since his “rediscovery” in the 1990s, retrospectives at the Musée d'Orsay and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum have been dedicated to the painter, also known as the “Danish Vermeer” .

Life

Vilhelm Hammershoi: The Four Rooms , 1914, oil on canvas, 85 × 70.5 cm, Ordrupgaard, Copenhagen

As the son of a middle-class family, Vilhelm Hammershøi received early support for his talent. He was born on May 15, 1864 in the house of his grandfather CF Rentzmann at Ved Stranden 2. His father is the merchant Christian P. Hammershøi (1828–1893), his mother is Frederikke Hammershøi, née Rentzmann (1838–1914). In 1871 the family moved into a new house at Frederiksberg-Allee 34.

From the age of eight he took drawing lessons and visits from October 1879 to April 1884, the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts Copenhagen and studied the way in 1883 at the De frie Studieskoler of PS Krøyer . In the Charlottenburg spring exhibition in 1885 he made his debut with his portrait of a young girl that sparked controversy. He then traveled to Berlin and Dresden, and in 1887 to the Netherlands and Belgium. In 1888 the dentist Alfred Bramsen (1851–1932) became his most important collector from then on. At the Paris World Exhibition in 1889, Hammershøi was represented with four works in the Danish exhibition. When Hammershøi's picture, Bedroom, was rejected by the Copenhagen Art Academy exhibition, artist Johan Rohde and Hammershøi founded The Free Exhibition ( Den Frie Udstilling ), which also featured Hammershøi's work.

On September 5, 1891, Hammershøi married Ida Illsted (1869–1949), with whom he left for Paris on the same day. His wife is a sister of his college friend Peter Ilsted . After stops in the Netherlands and Belgium, they reach the French capital around September 26, 1891. Hammershøi rents an apartment on Avenue Kléber and makes important acquaintances, including that of the art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel and again meets the critic Théodore Duret . After returning to Copenhagen in 1892, the couple moved into an apartment on Rahbeks-Allee in the Frederiksberg district .

Hammershøi's father Christian died on April 27, 1893. In the same year the painter received a scholarship from the academy for a stay in Italy. He then stayed in Florence, Fiesole, Siena, Padua, Venice and Verona. In the spring of 1894 his work Artemis was shown at Den frie Udstilling . In 1897 he changed his apartment again and moved into a newly built apartment building in Åhuset. In the same year, Sergei Djagilew acquires two works by Hammershøi, which have now disappeared. Hammershøi lived in London at the end of 1897 and again from January to May 1898. However , he did not manage to meet the painter James McNeill Whistler, whom he admired , even though he was in England at the same time. After his return in September he moved into the apartment on the first floor at Strandgade 30, which he was to immortalize in numerous paintings.

In 1902 two works were created for Copenhagen City Hall. Hammershøi then spent the period from October 1902 to February 1903 in Rome, Naples and Paestum . In 1903 Hammershøi met the English pianist Leonard Borwick , whom he visited in England in the same year and in 1904. In 1905 the influential Berlin art dealer Paul Cassirer bought several pictures by Hammershøi and in 1906 he dedicated a solo exhibition to the painter in his Hamburg gallery. In 1909 he moved again, his new address was Kvæsthusgade 6. In 1909 Hammershøi was appointed a member of the general assembly and in 1910 a councilor of the art academy. Awards followed, such as the first prize at the Esposizione Internazionale di Roma - Mostra di belle arti in Rome (1911). From 1910 on, Bredgade 25 is his home. In 1913 he moved one last time to an apartment belonging to the Asian Trading Company on Strandgade 25. In 1915, Hammershøi painted his last picture. In 1914, shortly after his mother's death on June 11, Hammershøi fell ill with throat cancer . He died of this disease in 1916 in the city hospital in Copenhagen.

reception

Through his participation in an exhibition at the Städtisches Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf , the poet Rainer Maria Rilke became aware of Hammershøi in 1904 and wrote after visiting him in Copenhagen:

“Yesterday I saw Hammershøi for the first time… I'm sure the more you see it, the more clearly you will recognize it and the more you will find its essential simplicity. I'll see him again without speaking to him because he only speaks Danish and hardly understands German. You feel that he only paints and cannot or will not do anything else. "

Works

Vilhelm Hammershøi's pictures are characterized by silence and melancholy. The interior and landscape paintings appear bare and purist, the cities in the architectural depictions from Copenhagen, London and Rome are deserted and gloomy. The works, mostly in muted gray, white, green and blue tones, are reminiscent of medieval grisaille painting. His pastel self-portrait from around 1890 (privately owned) is also determined by the gray tones.

Well-known pictures of Hammershøi are:

  • 1901, interior, Strandgade 30, Städel Museum , Frankfurt am Main.
  • 1903, Gentofter See, private collection.
  • 1903/1904, Interior, Strandgade 30, Randers Art Museum.
  • 1905, White Doors / Open Doors, David's Collection, Copenhagen.

literature

  • Felix Krämer: Vilhelm Hammershøi . Catalog for the exhibition “Vilhelm Hammershøi” in the Hamburger Kunsthalle from March 22 to June 29, 2003; Christians, Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-922909-80-9 .
  • Felix Krämer, Naoki Sato, Anne-Birgitte Fonsmark: Vilhelm Hammershøi . Hatje Cantz, 2008, ISBN 978-3-7757-2199-8 .
  • Poul Vad: Vilhelm Hammershøi and Danish Art at the Turn of the Century . Yale University Press, New Haven 1992, ISBN 0-300-04956-0 .

Web links

Commons : Vilhelm Hammershøi  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Poul Vad: Hammershøi - Le maître de la peinture danoise (Ouvrage publié à l'occasion de l'exposition au musée Jacquemart-André du 14 mars to 22 juillet 2019) . Ed .: Jean-Loup Champion, Pierre Curie. Fonds Mercator, Bruxelles 2019, ISBN 978-94-6230-129-0 , pp. 14-17 .
  2. ↑ Patricia G. Berman: In another light - Danish painting in the nineteenth century . Thames & Hudson, London 2007, ISBN 978-0-500-23844-8 , pp. 15 .
  3. ↑ Only at first glance is Vilhelm Hammershøi the most boring painter of all time. monopol-magazin.de, July 8, 2009, accessed June 15, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Hammershøi, Vilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Danish painter
DATE OF BIRTH May 15, 1864
PLACE OF BIRTH Copenhagen
DATE OF DEATH February 13, 1916
Place of death Copenhagen