Vilhelm Hammershøi

Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916) was a Danish painter known for his muted, contemplative interior scenes and portraits, most set in his apartment at Strandgade 30 in Copenhagen. His restrained palette of greys, whites and soft browns, and his preference for solitary figures seen from behind, give his work a quiet intensity that has drawn comparisons with Vermeer. Long overlooked outside Scandinavia, his reputation has grown considerably since a series of major retrospectives from the 1990s onwards.