Hammershøi. The Eye That Listens

From 17 February to 31 May 2026, the temporary exhibition halls located on the ground floor of the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum will host the first retrospective in Spain devoted to the Danish artist, Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916). The exhibition of around one hundred works will offer an extensive and complete overview of his work.

More than a hundred years after the death of the painter, who enjoyed considerable success during his lifetime thanks to his cold and silent interiors, spectators today still find his works appealing yet unsettling.  The ambiguity of his approaches leaves them open to various interpretations, which have been enriched in recent decades thanks to the search for connections with  other European artists and his contextualisation with Danish peers.

This exhibition enables his paintings to be seen and compared with past maestros, such as 17th-century Dutch painters and the great 19th and 20th-century artists, such as Edward Hopper.  

The exhibition helps to bring Hammershøi’s work closer to the new generation of creators and historians, as well as to the general public in Spain, who had previously been able to view his work on very few occasions.  The subtitle of the exhibition, “The Eye That Listens”, refers to the metaphorical relationship between his paintings, the silence and apparent calm they convey and the artist’s interest in music.  The exhibition will address this and other themes of his work, such as the role of his wife, Ida Ilsted in his creative process, the progressive refinement of his domestic interiors and their parallels with the handling of architecture and landscapes.

Image Credit:

Vilhelm Hammershøi. Inside the artist’s house, 1900 Oil on Canvas, 65.5× 54.5. Finnish National Gallery Collection / Ateneum Art Museum, Legacy of R. F. von Willebrand  © Finnish National Gallery / Hannu Aaltonen