The Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza presents the first retrospective in Spain devoted to the Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864–1916), which will offer a wide-ranging and comprehensive survey of his oeuvre through around a hundred works. More than a hundred years after the death of the artist, who enjoyed considerable success during his lifetime for his cold, silent interiors, modern-day viewers still find his works appealing and unsettling. The ambiguity of his paintings makes them open to many interpretations, which have been enriched in recent decades by attempts both to establish connections with other European artists and to contextualise him with his Danish contemporaries. Viewing Hammershøi’s works in the framework of the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza will also make it possible to relate them to past masters such as seventeenth-century Dutch painters and great nineteenth- and twentieth-century artists.

Diese Ausstellung ist mehr als eine historische Würdigung. Sie ist eine Annäherung an ein Werk, das im Flüstern seine größte Intensität erreicht. Der Untertitel „The Eye that Listens“ verweist auf jene poetische Spannung zwischen Wahrnehmung und Klang, zwischen Raum und Resonanz. The subtitle of the exhibition, “the eye that listens”, is a reference to the metaphorical relationship between Hammershøi’s paintings, the silence and apparent calm they convey, and the artist’s interest in music. The exhibition addresses this and other themes that permeate his work, such as his wife Ida Ilsted’s role in his creative process, the progressive refinement of his domestic interiors and their parallels with the handling of architecture and landscapes, and his depiction of himself as a painter during the last years of his life.

Hammershøis Interieurs sind Räume der Konzentration. Türen stehen halb geöffnet, Licht gleitet über Wände in gedämpften Grautönen, Figuren erscheinen oft von hinten – entrückt und zugleich gegenwärtig. In dieser Reduktion liegt eine Modernität, die bis heute nachhallt.

The exhibition will bring his work closer to the current generation of creators and historians, as well as to the general public in Spain, who has rarely had the chance to view it until now. Exhibition organised by the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in cooperation with the Kunsthaus Zürich.

Nach Madrid wird die Ausstellung weiterreisen: The exhibition will be presented at the Kunsthaus Zürich (Switzerland) from 3 July to 25 October 2026. The exhibition catalogue was made possible through the support of the New Carlsberg Foundation.

„Hammershøi. The Eye that Listens“ ist eine Ausstellung, die nicht laut sein muss, um nachzuwirken. Sie zeigt, wie Stille zur Bildsprache wird und wie Vilhelm Hammershøi im 21. Jahrhundert eine neue Aktualität gewinnt. Wer sich auf diese Malerei einlässt, entdeckt nicht nur Interieurs – sondern das vibrierende Echo des Unsichtbaren.