Vilhelm Hammershøi: Interiør. Spisestuen. Frederiksberg Allé (Interior. Dining Room. Frederiksberg Allé), 1888. Oil on wood. 18.5 x 16 cm Estimate: DKK 400,000–500,000.

Hammershøi and His Friends

Vilhelm Hammershøi is Denmark’s best-known artist from an international perspective, and his enigmatic, grey-toned interiors are in high demand all over the world. At the Live Auction on 6 December, we will be putting the spotlight on Hammershøi and the artists around him with a long list of beautiful works.

When we swing the hammer at the first Live Auction at our new auction house at Nørgaardsvej 3 in Lyngby on Wednesday 6 December, part of the auction is dedicated to the theme “Hammershøi and His Friends”. We will be presenting several works by Hammershøi himself and the artists in his circle, including Peter Ilsted, Carl Holsøe and L.A. Ring.

“I have a student who paints quite strangely. I do not understand him, believe that he will become significant, do not seek to influence him.”
P.S. Krøyer on his student Vilhelm Hammershøi.

The Enigmatic Motifs of a Controversial Artist

Hammershøi is one of a kind in Danish art. Already as a child he showed great artistic talent, and at the age of 8 he began receiving private drawing lessons. From 1879–84, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, and from 1883–85 at Kunstnernes Frie Studieskoler under the artist P.S. Krøyer. Hammershøi developed his distinctive expression early on with a world of motifs mainly centred on interiors, landscapes and portraits. He favoured a subdued colour palette, which at first glance consists only of shades of grey, black and white. However, recent research shows that his works are in reality a sea of colours.

Vilhelm Hammershøi: Jægersborg Allé, 1892. Pencil on paper. 24.5 x 33.8 cm Estimate: DKK 80,000–100,000.

Hammershøi is known all over the world, particularly for his interiors and women with their backs turned. In his day, however, Hammershøi was considered controversial, and he created an uproar on the Danish art scene. Several of his works were rejected by the established exhibitions – the painting “En ung pige der syr” (Young Girl Sewing) from 1887 was, for example, rejected by the exhibition committee at Charlottenborg, while in 1889, it was awarded a bronze medal at the Paris Exposition.

Hammershøi managed to paint enigmatic rooms full of atmosphere where time seems to stand still. The home he shared with his wife Ida at Strandgade 30 in Christianshavn from 1898–1908 formed the setting for many of his motifs. Here, he depicted the almost empty living rooms of the home again and again, often with Ida as a model with her back turned, lost in thought. The overwhelming absence of action in the works contributes to the experience of a particularly timeless metaphysical mood that points towards something soulful.

Peter Ilsted: Interiør med sollys gennem vinduet (Interior With Sunlight Through the Window), 1908. Signed. Oil on canvas. 53 x 53 cm Estimate: DKK 400,000–600,000.

Motif From Hammershøi’s Childhood Home

Included in the auction is one of Hammershøi’s earliest interiors with a motif taken from his childhood home at Frederiksberg Allé 54. The work from 1888, which was once owned by his brother, the artist Svend Hammershøi, can be said to have sown the seed for several of his later interiors. With its loose, impressionistic style and composition with the familiar furniture, windows with transparent curtains and view of deciduous trees, the painting is a preliminary study for one of his later elaborate interiors. The exact same motif is also known from a photograph taken by his good friend, the photographer Valdemar Schønheyder Møller. The photograph was once owned by Hammershøi himself, and the study up for auction thus underlines both his connection to photography as an artistic medium and the development of the interior in his artistic oeuvre.

Hammershøi’s drawings are also in high demand on the art market, and at the auction we will, in addition to the interior study, be presenting four fine drawings by him. These are a motif from Jægersborg Allé north of Copenhagen, two portraits and a nude study of a standing boy.

The Circle of Artists Around Hammershøi

Hammershøi is undoubtedly the greatest exponent of interior painting of the time, but turning personal surroundings into motifs was popular with several artists in the late 1800s. For them, home, family and everyday life became the focal point at a time when modern-day city life was becoming increasingly hectic. When it came to their motifs, they turned their backs on the public domain to concentrate on the controlled tranquillity within the four walls of the home. This was the case for Peter Ilsted and Carl Holsøe, among others, who were part of Hammershøi’s inner circle, as well as artists such as Viggo Johansen, Julius Paulsen and Cilius Andersen. In several of the works up for auction, these artists invite us inside and give us an intimate insight into bourgeois family life and the traditional gender roles that unfolded around the turn of the century.

Carl Holsøe: Interiør med mor der ammer sit barn. Signeret. Olie på lærred. 100 x 87 cm. Vurdering: 200.000-300.000 kr.

Hammershøi had a great influence on several of these artists, particularly Ilsted and Holsøe, who also focused on “quiet living rooms”. Ilsted and Hammershøi met at the art academy and became close friends. In 1891, Hammershøi married Ilsted’s sister Ida, strengthening the close bond between the two artists. Holsøe became Hammershøi’s close friend and artist colleague when they both studied at Kunstnernes Frie Studieskoler, and the two painters undoubtedly influenced one another. In Holsøe’s work, however, we do not see the same symbolic undertones, but a more prosaic focus on the beauty of the home.