Exposition: Hammershøi, le maître de la peinture danoise jusqu'à 22 juillet 2019

Quoi(what) :           Hammershøi, le maître de la peinture danoise
​                                 ( Hammershøi, the master of Danish painting)

Quand(when):        Du 14 mars au 22 juillet 2019(14 March to 22 July 2019)

Où (where):            Musée Jacquemart-André, 
​                                158 boulevard Haussmann 75008 Paris

sunshine in the drawing room, by Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916)

For the first time in more than 20 years, the artworks of Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916) returned to Paris, with more than 40 of his works on exhibition in Musée Jacquemart-André, after his two previous expositions in 1987(Petit Palais) and in 1997 (Musee Orsay).

The painter himself was in Paris between 1899 to 1900 to participate in Expositions universelles.

2019 Exposition: Hammershøi, le maître de la peinture danoise a parisVilhelm Hammershøi Self-portrait, 1895

Vilhelm Hammershøi was born in 1864 in Copenhagen, Denmark in a well-to-do merchant family and studied drawing from the age of eight as well as painting before embarking on studies at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts.

In 1885, he participated in the Charlottenborg Spring Exhibition with Portrait of a Young Girl (of his sister, Anna), which was admired by Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

Portrait of a young girl by Vilhelm Hammershøi, 1885

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 Ida from 1898 to 1909, and Strandgade 25 (where they lived from 1913 to 1916). He travelled widely in Europe, finding London especially atmospheric in providing locations for his highly understated work, suffused as it was at the time with a foggy, coal smoke polluted atmosphere. His work in consequence has been described as "Monet meets the Camden School".

Greatly Influenced by Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer(31 October 1632-15 December 1675), Vilhelm loved painting intimate and delicate domestic scenes with young woman doing their daily chores, but unlike Vermeer, Vilhelm's tones are much more restrictive, mostly in greys and beiges, which evokes sense of solitude, silence, loneliness and melancholy, quite like James Whistler (July 11, 1834  – July 17, 1903), the American artist whom Vilhelm also admired a lot.

Johannes Vermeer, the lacemaker, 1669-1770

Vilhelm Hammershøi, a young girl sewing, 1887

And as a very shy and taciturn person, he only used his family members like his wife, his sister or very close friends as his models.

Videos

A quick look at the exposition

Plan your visit to the Museum

Or you can get a copy of the catalogue put together by the curator of the exposition Jean-Loup Champion an Pierre Curie.

HAMMERSHOI. LE MAÎTRE DE LA PEINTURE DANOISE

​JEAN-LOUP CHAMPION ET PIERRE CURIE (DIR.)

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