We saw this painting by Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916) last year in the Danish National Gallery in Copenhagen. Although he painted portraits and landscapes it is for his rather minimalist, Dutch-inspired, interiors that Hammershøi is best known. The painter was born and lived in Copenhagen where he started his studies at the age of eight and by his mid-teens he was already studying at the Royal Academy of Art in Copenhagen.
He used a very muted, almost monchrome palette and many of his cool interiors feature his wife, Ada.
Female model: studies
Hammershøi in his studio
We like the rather bleak, lonely, stillness of Hammershøi's painting and think it sums up the bleaker aspects of Baltic painting of a century ago.
