Tag: Leslie Hossack

Hammershøi: The National Gallery of Denmark, Part 6

70 1892, View of Jaegersborg Alle, Gentofte by Leslie HossackView of Jaegersborg Alle, Gentofte (1892)
Collection: Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

76 1901 Near Fortunen Jaegersborg Deer Park North of Copenhagen by Leslie HossackNear Fortunen Jaegersborg Deer Park North of Copenhagen (1901)
Collection: Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

80 1903, Sunshower Gentofte Lake by Leslie HossackSunshower Gentofte Lake (1903)
Collection: Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

82 1904, Tree Trunks, Arresodal Frederiksvaerk by Leslie HossackTree Trunks, Arresodal Frederiksvaerk (1904)
Collection: Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

83 1905, From Christianshavn's Canal Copenhagen by Leslie HossackFrom Christianshavn’s Canal Copenhagen (1905)
Collection: Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

all photographs © 2019 Leslie Hossack

Vilhelm Hammershøi’s landscapes, although devoid of people, pulsate with energy. The five paintings above share a palette and sensibility that is evident, even at first glance. They also share a theme, timber, which is portrayed as trees growing near roadways in the countryside and masts floating on ships in the harbour. The last two canvases above, Tree Trunks, Arresodal Frederiksvaerk and From Christianshavn’s Canal Copenhagen are identical in some ways. The rigging on the masts and the branches on the tree seem to echo each other.

“Hammershøi did paint several pictures from Copenhagen Harbour… He stuck to the narrow canals of Christianshavn… One of these is From Christianshavn’s Canal Copenhagen… In this painting, which is a study for a larger picture, Hammershøi was interested in the compact pictorial structure created by the many lines of the rigging of the ships.”
Kasper Monrad, “Intense Absence,” Hammershøi and Europe (2014)

Hammershøi’s oeuvre consists of landscapes, architecture, portraits, nudes and interiors. However, it was his interiors that were the most popular in his lifetime (1864-1916) and continue to draw the strongest response today. Hammershøi painted over 100 interiors in the various apartments he shared with his wife Ida in Copenhagen. Their home was both his studio and a major motif in his work.

Over a century ago, Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi elevated
“Stay At Home. Work At Home.” to an art form.

Leslie Hossack’s Hammershøi Photographs are part of a larger body of work that explores Hitler’s Berlin, Stalin’s Moscow, Mussolini’s Rome, Churchill’s London, contested sites in Jerusalem, the NATO Headquarter Camp in Kosovo, buildings linked to the Japanese Canadian internment during WWII, the D-Day landing beaches of Normandy, the Nazi-occupied Channel Islands, Scotland’s Freemasons and Sigmund Freud’s Vienna.

To view more photographs by Leslie Hossack, please visit lesliehossack.com

Hammershøi: The National Gallery of Denmark, Part 7

63 1888, Woman Seen from the Back. Figure of a Woman by Leslie HossackWoman Seen from the Back (1888)
Collection: Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

64 1889, Seated Female Nude by Leslie HossackSeated Female Nude (1889)
Collection: Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

69 1891, Evening in the Drawing Room, The Artist's Wife and Mother by Leslie HossackEvening in the Drawing Room, The Artist’s Wife and Mother (1891)
Collection: Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

71 1893-1894 Artemis by Leslie HossackArtemis (1893-1894)
Collection: Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

81 1904, Evening in the Drawing Room by Leslie HossackEvening in the Drawing Room (1904)
Collection: Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

89 1909-1910, Female Model by Leslie HossackFemale Model (1909-1910)
Collection: Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

all photographs © 2019 Leslie Hossack

Vilhelm Hammershøi is best known for his empty spaces, both interiors and exteriors. However, many of his 377 paintings, drawings and sketches contain human figures, especially the female form. Above are six examples, all photographed by Leslie Hossack in 2019 in the National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen.

These six paintings are part of the permanent collection of the Statens Museum for Kunst (SMK), and each one is characterized by Hammershøi’s distinctive muted palette. He was a collector of photographs and he appears to have been influenced by the visual language and palette of comtemporary prints.

“Hammershøi’s tone painting and coloristic aesthetic were clearly inspired by the photography of the day and the soft grayish-brown tone with which the photographers themselves tinted their pictures and endeavored to give them a ‘painterly’ expression.”
Henrik Wivel, Hammershøi in the David  Collection (2017)

Hammershøi’s oeuvre consists of landscapes, architecture, portraits, nudes and interiors. However, it was his interiors that were the most popular in his lifetime (1864-1916) and continue to draw the strongest response today. Hammershøi painted over 100 interiors in the various apartments he shared with his wife Ida in Copenhagen. Their home was both his studio and a major motif in his work.

Over a century ago, Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi elevated
“Stay At Home. Work At Home.” to an art form.

Leslie Hossack’s Hammershøi Photographs are part of a larger body of work that explores Hitler’s Berlin, Stalin’s Moscow, Mussolini’s Rome, Churchill’s London, contested sites in Jerusalem, the NATO Headquarter Camp in Kosovo, buildings linked to the Japanese Canadian internment during WWII, the D-Day landing beaches of Normandy, the Nazi-occupied Channel Islands, Scotland’s Freemasons and Sigmund Freud’s Vienna.

To view more photographs by Leslie Hossack, please visit lesliehossack.com

Hammershøi: Musée Jacquemart-André, Part 1

38 1884 1888, Etude de une femme debout, vue de dos by Leslie HossackStudy of a Woman Standing, seen from back (1884-1888)
Ambassador John L. Loeb Jr. Danish Art Collection

63 1888, Woman Seen from the Back. Figure of a Woman by Leslie HossackWoman Seen from the Back (1888)
Collection: Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

all photographs © 2019 Leslie Hossack

In 2019, the Musée Jacquemart-André, along with Culturespaces, hosted an exhibition in Paris entitled Hammershøi: The Master of Danish Painting. This blockbuster show was curated by Jean-Loup Champion, Art Historian and Pierre Curie, Curator of the Musée Jacquemart-André.

After photographing 60 paintings by Vilhelm Hammershøi in Ottawa, Toronto and Copenhagen, Leslie Hossack flew to Paris to view the 40 works promised in the press release.

“Forty works will reveal the mysterious and poetic world of the artist. Previously unseen works from the Ambassador John L. Loeb Jr. Danish Art Collection, which are rarely exhibited during the major international retrospectives devoted to Hammershøi’s oeuvre, will be displayed for the first time in France.”
Press Kit, Hammershøi: The Master of Danish Painting, Musée Jacquemart-André and Culturespaces (2019)

The two images above are Study of a Woman Standing, seen from back (1884-1888), from the Ambassador John L. Loeb Jr. Danish Art Collection, as photographed in Paris and Woman Seen from the Back (1888), from the permanent collection of Statens Museum for Kunst (SMK), as photographed in Copenhagen exactly one week earlier.

The following posts on Haute Vitrine will present Leslie Hossack’s photographs of all the Hammershøi pieces presented in the Paris exhibition Hammershøi: The Master of Danish Painting.

“The exhibition will also include loaned works from major Danish and Swedish museums, such as the Statens Museum for Kunst and the Hirschprungske Samling in Copenhagen, the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, and the Malmö Konstmuseum, as well as the Musée d’Orsay and London’s Tate Gallery, and from private collections. Major works will illustrate every aspect of Hammershøi’s oeuvre: his first portraits, nudes, architectural views, landscapes, and the extraordinary interior scenes that have made him so famous.”
Press Kit, Hammershøi: The Master of Danish Painting, Musée Jacquemart-André and Culturespaces (2019)

Hammershøi’s oeuvre consists of landscapes, architecture, portraits, nudes and interiors. However, it was his interiors that were the most popular in his lifetime (1864-1916) and continue to draw the strongest response today. Hammershøi painted over 100 interiors in the various apartments he shared with his wife Ida in Copenhagen. Their home was both his studio and a major motif in his work.

Over a century ago, Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi elevated
“Stay At Home. Work At Home.” to an art form.

Leslie Hossack’s Hammershøi Photographs are part of a larger body of work that explores Hitler’s Berlin, Stalin’s Moscow, Mussolini’s Rome, Churchill’s London, contested sites in Jerusalem, the NATO Headquarter Camp in Kosovo, buildings linked to the Japanese Canadian internment during WWII, the D-Day landing beaches of Normandy, the Nazi-occupied Channel Islands, Scotland’s Freemasons and Sigmund Freud’s Vienna.

To view more photographs by Leslie Hossack, please visit lesliehossack.com

Hammershøi: Musée Jacquemart-André, Part 2

36 1886, Portrait of the Artist's Mother, Portrait de la mere de l'artiste; The Artist's Mother Frederikke Hammershøi by Leslie HossackPortrait of the Artist’s Mother (1886)
Private Collection

37 1889, Interieur avec la mere de l'artiste; Interior with the Artist's Mother by Leslie HossackInterior with the Artist’s Mother (1889)
Collection: Nationalmuseum, Stockholm

11 1890, Portrait of Ida Ilsted, the artist’s future wife, Portrait d’Ida Ilsted, future femme de l’artiste by Leslie HossackPortrait of Ida Ilsted, The Artist’s Future Wife (1890)
Collection: Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

33 1892, Portrait of Ida, Portrait d’Ida by Leslie HossackPortrait of Ida (1892)
Private Collection

12 1895, Three Young Women, Trois Jeunes Femmes by Leslie HossackThree Young Women (1895)
Collection: Ribe Kunstmusem, Ribe

all photographs © 2019 Leslie Hossack

In 2019, at the exhibition entitled Hammershøi: The Master of Danish Painting at the Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris, gallery-goers met the significant women in Vilhelm Hammershøi’s life. Leslie Hossack’s photographs above introduce his mother Frederikke, his sister Anna and his wife Ida.

Hammershoi’s mother, Frederikke, was his lifelong champion. She encouraged his artistic interests from a very young age, and throughout her life she kept scrapbooks of press clippings about him. Two portraits of Hammershoi’s mother can be seen above.

“She played an important role in her son’s life; he painted two portraits of her when he was very young. Painted in 1886, the first portrait (private collection) was inspired by the composition of the famous portrait of the mother of James McNeill Whistler, which is held in the Musée d’Orsay, attesting to Hammershøi’s lifelong admiration of the American painter. Three years later, he depicted his mother knitting on a couch in three quarters.”
Press Kit, Hammershøi: The Master of Danish Painting, Musée Jacquemart-André and Culturespaces (2019)

However, it was Hammershøi’s his wife, Ida, who became his muse and model from the time of their engagement in 1890 until his death in 1916. We can follow her changing appearance in portraits painted over 26 years of marriage.

In the last image above, Ida sits at the centre of Three Young Women (1895), between her two sisters-in-law, Anna Hammershøi and Ingeborg Ilsted. As is typical of Vilhelm Hammershøi’s paintings, the subjects don’t interact with each other or the viewer. Here, the only connection among the three women is that their knees are touching.

After photographing 100 works by Hammershøi, Leslie Hossack wrote: “Initially, I was seduced by his interiors – soothing, calming, melancholic, poetic and, at the same time, deeply disturbing. Hammershøi’s interiors invite us into his own world and our own, literally and metaphorically. However, I came to realize that his portraits have the same power. Observing Ida, captured on canvas in her own physical surroundings and psychological space, viewers are compelled to enter unknown interior spaces of their own.”

Hammershøi’s oeuvre consists of portraits, landscapes, architecture, nudes and interiors. However, it was his interiors that were the most popular in his lifetime (1864-1916) and continue to draw the strongest response today. Hammershøi painted over 100 interiors in the various apartments he shared with his wife Ida in Copenhagen. Their home was both his studio and a major motif in his work.

Over a century ago, Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi elevated
“Stay At Home. Work At Home.” to an art form.

Leslie Hossack’s Hammershøi Photographs are part of a larger body of work that explores Hitler’s Berlin, Stalin’s Moscow, Mussolini’s Rome, Churchill’s London, contested sites in Jerusalem, the NATO Headquarter Camp in Kosovo, buildings linked to the Japanese Canadian internment during WWII, the D-Day landing beaches of Normandy, the Nazi-occupied Channel Islands, Scotland’s Freemasons and Sigmund Freud’s Vienna.

To view more photographs by Leslie Hossack, please visit lesliehossack.com

Hammershøi: Musée Jacquemart-André, Part 3

10 1898 Interior With A Young Man Reading by Leslie HossackInterior With A Young Man Reading (1898)
Collection: Den Hirschsprungske Samling, Copenhagen

13 1901-1902, Five Portraits by Leslie HossackFive Portraits (1901-1902)
Collection: Thielska Galleriet, Stockholm

34 1889 1890, Self Portrait by Leslie HossackSelf Portrait (1889-1890)
Collection: Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

26 1895, Self Portrait by Leslie HossackSelf Portrait (1895)
Collection: Fondation Custodia, Paris

35 1913 Self Portrait by Leslie HossackSelf Portrait (1913)
Collection: Gallerie Degli Uffizi, Florence

all photographs © 2019 Leslie Hossack

Hammershøi’s inner circle consisted of his mother Frederikke, his sister Anna and his wife Ida, all of whom were introduced in the previous Haute Vitrine post. His circle also included his brother Svend, as well as several friends and colleagues from Copenhagen’s broader artistic community.

In 2019, at the exhibition entitled Hammershøi: The Master of Danish Painting, at the Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris, gallery-goers met some of the significant men in Hammershøi’s life. In the massive painting Five Portraits (190 x 300 cm) we see, gathered around a table, architect Thorvald Bindesbøll, art historian Karl Madsen, painter J.F. Willumsen, painter Carl Holsøe and the artist’s brother Svend Hammershøi who is in the foreground smoking a pipe.

“Hammershøi’s modernism explodes in Five Portraits (Thielska Galleriet, Stockholm), a monumental canvas that he considered his masterpiece and which caused a scandal when it was first exhibited in 1902. The atmosphere in this representation of the group of artists who were close to Hammershøi is not in the least festive. Again, there is no interaction between the sitters, each of whom is looking in a different direction. The feeling of strangeness is enhanced by the chiaroscuro, which creates a spectacular—almost gloomy—nocturnal scene.”
Press Kit, Hammershøi: The Master of Danish Painting, Musée Jacquemart-André and Culturespaces (2019)

Leslie Hossack’s photographs above also present the artist himself. In these three self portraits, we can follow the changes in Hammershøi’s face, and his style of painting, over the course of more than two decades.

Hammershøi’s oeuvre consists of portraits, landscapes, architecture, nudes and interiors. However, it was his interiors that were the most popular in his lifetime (1864-1916) and continue to draw the strongest response today. Hammershøi painted over 100 interiors in the various apartments he shared with his wife Ida in Copenhagen. Their home was both his studio and a major motif in his work.

Over a century ago, Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi elevated
“Stay At Home. Work At Home.” to an art form.

Leslie Hossack’s Hammershøi Photographs are part of a larger body of work that explores Hitler’s Berlin, Stalin’s Moscow, Mussolini’s Rome, Churchill’s London, contested sites in Jerusalem, the NATO Headquarter Camp in Kosovo, buildings linked to the Japanese Canadian internment during WWII, the D-Day landing beaches of Normandy, the Nazi-occupied Channel Islands, Scotland’s Freemasons and Sigmund Freud’s Vienna.

To view more photographs by Leslie Hossack, please visit lesliehossack.com

Hammershøi: Musée Jacquemart-André, Part 4

42 1880 Landscape with a Row of Trees by Leslie HossackLandscape with a Row of Trees (1880)
Ambassador John L. Loeb Jr. Danish Art Collection

32 1888 Paysage de Virum près de Frederiksdal, été by Leslie HossackLandscape from Virum near Frederiksdal, summer (1888)
Ambassador John L. Loeb Jr. Danish Art Collection

14 1900 Landscape Stockholm, Thielska Galleriet by Leslie HossackLandscape (1900)
Collection: Thielska Galleriet, Stockholm

40 1905 Landscape from Lejre by Leslie HossackLandscape from Lejre (1905)
Collection: Nationalmuseum, Stolkholm

41 1909 Landscape By Leslie HossackLandscape (1909)
Private Collection

all photographs © 2019 Leslie Hossack

The Vilhelm Hammershøi landscape paintings shown above were photographed by Leslie Hossack in 2019, at the exhibition entitled Hammershøi: The Master of Danish Painting, at the Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris.

These landscapes provide a welcome breath of fresh air after the staged silence and stifling stillness of many of Hammershøi’s paintings previously posted here on Haute Vitrine. The first work above was painted when he was only 16 years old and the last one was created almost 30 years later.

“In the first half of the nineteenth century, the Danish Golden Age painters particularly excelled in the art of landscape painting. Hammershøi followed this tradition, but gave his works a very different meaning and atmosphere. The landscape that he painted at the age of sixteen and which represents a diagonal row of trees in the countryside (the Ambassador John L. Loeb Jr. Danish Art Collection) is in line with the landscapes painted by his illustrious predecessors, but his subsequent landscapes do not demonstrate the same connection with nature. The artist imbued his landscapes with an implacable detachment, transforming them into interior landscapes.”
Press Kit, Hammershøi: The Master of Danish Painting, Musée Jacquemart-André and Culturespaces (2019)

Hammershøi’s oeuvre consists of landscapes, portraits, architecture, nudes and interiors. However, it was his interiors that were the most popular in his lifetime (1864-1916) and continue to draw the strongest response today. Hammershøi painted over 100 interiors in the various apartments he shared with his wife Ida in Copenhagen. Their home was both his studio and a major motif in his work.

Over a century ago, Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi elevated
“Stay At Home. Work At Home.” to an art form.

Leslie Hossack’s Hammershøi Photographs are part of a larger body of work that explores Hitler’s Berlin, Stalin’s Moscow, Mussolini’s Rome, Churchill’s London, contested sites in Jerusalem, the NATO Headquarter Camp in Kosovo, buildings linked to the Japanese Canadian internment during WWII, the D-Day landing beaches of Normandy, the Nazi-occupied Channel Islands, Scotland’s Freemasons and Sigmund Freud’s Vienna.

To view more photographs by Leslie Hossack, please visit lesliehossack.com

Hammershøi: Musée Jacquemart-André, Part 5

43 1886, Nude Female Model In Profile by Leslie Hossack

Nude Female Model In Profile (1886)
Private Collection

46 1886, Model by Leslie HossackModel (1886)
Collection: David Kell & Marie Dahi Kell

45 1889, Nu a mi-corps by Leslie HossackSeated Nude (1889)
Collection: Konstmuseum, Malmö

44 1909 1910, Three Studies of the Female Nude by Leslie HossackThree Studies of the Female Nude (1909-1910)
Collection: Collection: Konstmuseum, Malmö

18 1910, Female Nude by Leslie Hossack

Nude Female Model (1910)
Collection: Davids Samling, Copenhagen

all photographs © 2019 Leslie Hossack

The five Vilhelm Hammershøi paintings of nude figures shown above were photographed by Leslie Hossack in 2019, at the exhibition entitled Hammershøi: The Master of Danish Painting, at the Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris.

“The theme of the nude, which represents a small proportion of Hammershøi’s work, is undoubtedly a lesser-known side of his oeuvre… As is typical of Hammershøi, he transformed the traditional models in order to represent an entirely personal vision on the canvas, in a limited palette dominated by shades of grey.”
Press Kit, Hammershøi: The Master of Danish Painting, Musée Jacquemart-André and Culturespaces (2019)

The last image above, Nude Female Model (1910), is a monumental canvas measuring 172.5 x 96.5 cm. After viewing this painting, Leslie Hossack wrote: “This is a female nude that women can relate to today. She appears to be comfortable in her own skin. Hammershøi does not try to objectify her, but rather presents his model as an intelligent and thoughtful individual who seems well grounded and able to stand on her own two feet. This is quite different from his depictions of his wife Ida in his many interior paintings. There, Ida resembles a small china figurine, casually placed in a doll house by a young child, without any regard as to whether the viewer can can see her face or not. Conversely, the woman so sensitively portrayed by Hammershøi in Nude Female Model (1910) is no china doll.”

“The woman does not seek eye contact with the beholder. With a kind of modesty, she envelopes herself and her integrity as a human being… Look: what a human being. It is a study in how one becomes what one is.”
Henrik Wivel, Hammershøi In The David Collection (2017)

Hammershøi’s oeuvre consists of nudes, landscapes, portraits, architecture and interiors. However, it was his interiors that were the most popular in his lifetime (1864-1916) and continue to draw the strongest response today. Hammershøi painted over 100 interiors in the various apartments he shared with his wife Ida in Copenhagen. Their home was both his studio and a major motif in his work.

Over a century ago, Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi elevated
“Stay At Home. Work At Home.” to an art form.

Leslie Hossack’s Hammershøi Photographs are part of a larger body of work that explores Hitler’s Berlin, Stalin’s Moscow, Mussolini’s Rome, Churchill’s London, contested sites in Jerusalem, the NATO Headquarter Camp in Kosovo, buildings linked to the Japanese Canadian internment during WWII, the D-Day landing beaches of Normandy, the Nazi-occupied Channel Islands, Scotland’s Freemasons and Sigmund Freud’s Vienna.

To view more photographs by Leslie Hossack, please visit lesliehossack.com

Hammershøi: Musée Jacquemart-André, Part 6

16 1906, Saint Peter's Church, Copenhagen by Leslie HossackSaint Peter’s Church, Copenhagen (1906)
Collection: Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

15 1906, Saint Peter's Church, Copenhagen Loeb by Leslie HossackSaint Peter’s Church, Copenhagen (1906)
Ambassador John L. Loeb Jr. Danish Art Collection

17 1912-1913 Jewish School, Guilford Street, London by Leslie HossackJewish School, Guilford Street, London (1912-1913)
Collection: Stiftung Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesmuseen Schloss Gottorf, Schleswig

all photographs © 2019 Leslie Hossack

Vilhelm Hammershøi’s three architectural paintings presented above were photographed by Leslie Hossack in 2019, at the exhibition entitled Hammershøi: The Master of Danish Painting, at the Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris. Hammershøi painted a number of landmarks in his home town of Copenhagen and he sometimes painted scenes during his travels to the Netherlands, Belgium, Paris, Rome, Florence, Stockholm, Berlin and London. Vilhelm and his wife Ida were very fond of London and the last image above was painted there.

“Hammershøi is a sedentary type: he likes to paint from his window. Living in Brunswick Square [London 1912-1913], he set his eyes on the Guilford Street Jewish School…”
Emmanuel Daydé and Rafael Pic, “Paris, London, Florence…” Le journal de l’expo (2019)

While visiting Copenhagen in 2019, Leslie Hossack photographed several locations featured in works by Hammershøi. One example is Saint Peter’s Church, Copenhagen 2019, shown below. It is interesting to compare it to the first painting shown above. Hammershøi and Hossack worked from the same spot to capture the church, and amazingly little has changed in the intervening 113 years. However, the angle of view is different. Hammershøi the painter usually worked from the second story of a nearby building, as was the case here in 1906. Hossack the photographer works with her feet planted firmly on the ground, as was the case in 2019.

Saint Peter's Church, Copenhagen 2019 by Leslie HossackSaint Peter’s Church, Copenhagen (2019), Leslie Hossack
Collection of the Artist

Hammershøi’s oeuvre consists of architecture, nudes, landscapes, portraits and interiors. However, it was his interiors that were the most popular in his lifetime (1864-1916) and continue to draw the strongest response today. Hammershøi painted over 100 interiors in the various apartments he shared with his wife Ida in Copenhagen. Their home was both his studio and a major motif in his work.

Over a century ago, Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi elevated
“Stay At Home. Work At Home.” to an art form.

Leslie Hossack’s Hammershøi Photographs are part of a larger body of work that explores Hitler’s Berlin, Stalin’s Moscow, Mussolini’s Rome, Churchill’s London, contested sites in Jerusalem, the NATO Headquarter Camp in Kosovo, buildings linked to the Japanese Canadian internment during WWII, the D-Day landing beaches of Normandy, the Nazi-occupied Channel Islands, Scotland’s Freemasons and Sigmund Freud’s Vienna.

To view more photographs by Leslie Hossack, please visit lesliehossack.com

Hammershøi: Musée Jacquemart-André, Part 7

39 1888 The Bakery by Leslie HossackThe Bakery (1888)
Collection: Stiftung Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesmuseen Schloss Gottorf,
Schleswig

22 1905, Cour, Strandgade 30 by Leslie HossackCourtyard, Strandgade 30 (1905)
Ambassador John L. Loeb Jr. Danish Art Collection

all photographs © 2019 Leslie Hossack

The two paintings by Vilhelm Hammershøi shown above were photographed by Leslie Hossack in 2019, at the exhibition entitled Hammershøi: The Master of Danish Painting, at the Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris.

The Bakery (1888) and Courtyard, Strandgade 30 (1905) are outliers in a way. Rarely did Hammershøi paint the interior of a shop. And although Hammershøi painted dozens of interior views of his Copenhagen apartment located at Strandgade 30, there are only a handful of exterior views of the building’s courtyard – some with a figure and some without. 

Courtyard, Strandgade 30 (1905) was one of nine Hammershøi works from the Ambassador John L. Loeb Jr. Danish Art Collection on view at the Musée Jacquemart-André in the 2019 Paris exhibition entitled Hammershøi: The Master of Danish Painting. John L. Loeb Jr. served as American Ambassador to Denmark from July 1981 until September 1983. While ambassador, Loeb started collecting Danish art and he now has the largest Danish art collection outside of Denmark.

Apparently some Danish museums were somewhat reluctant to lend their Hammershøi paintings to the exhibition at the Musée Jacquemart-André. So curator Jean-Loup Champion headed off to New York to ask John L. Loeb Jr. about the possibility of  borrowing  paintings from the Ambassador John L. Loeb Jr. Danish Art Collection. According to Champion, Loeb replied, “Take whatever you want.” Champion added, “It made it possible for me to organise the exhibition that I wanted. I took 11 paintings.”

“I have had such pleasure in this collection that one of my lifetime goals has become to make the world – especially Americans – aware of the impressive quality of Danish art which has not achieved the recognition it deserves. Whenever we have been able to advance it, I leap at the chance.”
John L. Loeb Jr.:Reflections, Memories, and Confessions (2018)

Leslie Hossack has a similar goal: to make the world more aware of the art of Vilhelm Hammershøi. One step toward achieving this goal is to publish, here on Haute Vitrine, her photographs of 100 works by Hammershøi as seen in situ in art galleries in Ottawa, Toronto, Copenhagen and Paris. The generosity of Ambassador Loeb’s loan of nine Hammershøi works to the Musée Jacquemart-André exhibition in 2019 is greatly appreciated. 

Hammershøi’s oeuvre consists of architecture, nudes, landscapes, portraits and interiors. However, it was his interiors that were the most popular in his lifetime (1864-1916) and continue to draw the strongest response today. Hammershøi painted over 100 interiors in the various apartments he shared with his wife Ida in Copenhagen. Their home was both his studio and a major motif in his work.

Over a century ago, Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi elevated
“Stay At Home. Work At Home.” to an art form.

Leslie Hossack’s Hammershøi Photographs are part of a larger body of work that explores Hitler’s Berlin, Stalin’s Moscow, Mussolini’s Rome, Churchill’s London, contested sites in Jerusalem, the NATO Headquarter Camp in Kosovo, buildings linked to the Japanese Canadian internment during WWII, the D-Day landing beaches of Normandy, the Nazi-occupied Channel Islands, Scotland’s Freemasons and Sigmund Freud’s Vienna.

To view more photographs by Leslie Hossack, please visit lesliehossack.com

Hammershøi: Musée Jacquemart-André, Part 8

23 1888, La Porte blanche (interior avec au vieux poele) by Leslie HossackThe White Door (1888)
Private Collection

30 1899, Intérieur, Strandgade 30 by Leslie HossackInterior, Strandgade 30 (1899)
Ambassador John L. Loeb Jr. Danish Art Collection

20 1900, Intérieur avec une femme arrangeant des fleurs dans un vase by Leslie HossackInterior with a Woman Arranging Flowers in a Vase (1900)
Ambassador John L. Loeb Jr. Danish Art Collection

31 1913, Intérieur avec une chaise Windsor by Leslie HossackInterior with a Windsor Chair (1913)
Ambassador John L. Loeb Jr. Danish Art Collection

19 n.d., Intérieur avec une femme debout by Leslie HossackInterior with a Woman Standing (no date)
Ambassador John L. Loeb Jr. Danish Art Collection

all photographs © 2019 Leslie Hossack

Shown above are five of several interior paintings by Vilhelm Hammershøi that were photographed by Leslie Hossack at the exhibition entitled Hammershøi: The Master of Danish Painting, Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris, 2019. All five are from private collections, the last four from the Ambassador John L. Loeb Jr. Danish Art Collection which was described in the previous post here on Haute Vitrine.

With the first painting above, The White Door (1888), Hammershøi had found his signature motif.

“Hammershøi painted his first empty interior in 1888 in the apartment of his friend Karl Madsen, a painter, art historian, and future director of the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen. The first thing one notices is the wood stove standing in a corner, which was one of the artist’s recurrent motifs. In this experimental picture, which is held in a private collection, it is The White Door (the title of the work) that provides all the light. The contrast with the dark room is starker than in later works, in which the play of light is rendered with far greater subtlety via a highly detailed technique.”
Press Kit, Hammershøi: The Master of Danish Painting, Musée Jacquemart-André and Culturespaces (2019)

Hammershøi painted the interiors of the apartments that he lived in with his wife Ida, from their first home which they moved to in 1892, until their last where they lived from 1913 until his death in 1916. However, it was their apartment located at Strandgade 30 (1898-1909) that features in the majority of Hammershøi’s interiors; about 60 of his 100 interiors were painted there. His home was his studio, his wife was his model, and his famous interiors were staged versions of their private living quarters.

“Tables and chairs are shuffled around, pictures are rehung, just as door hinges and handles are manipulated in and out of the pictures – all to simplify and tighten motifs, which all then appear as clear geometric structures, and to study the effect of doing so…
Hammershøi was, after all, a master of light, and in his new apartment he found a series of rooms with different light conditions and an inter-connecting succession of rooms that afforded him the opportunity to explore the dynamics of the light.”
Anne-Birgitte Fonsmark & Jacob Bach Riis, At Home With Hammershøi, Ordrupgaard (2018)

Hammershøi’s oeuvre consists of interiors, architecture, nudes, landscapes and portraits. However, it was his interiors that were the most popular in his lifetime (1864-1916) and continue to draw the strongest response today. Hammershøi painted over 100 interiors in the various apartments he shared with his wife Ida in Copenhagen. Their home was both his studio and a major motif in his work.

Over a century ago, Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi elevated
“Stay At Home. Work At Home.” to an art form.

Leslie Hossack’s Hammershøi Photographs are part of a larger body of work that explores Hitler’s Berlin, Stalin’s Moscow, Mussolini’s Rome, Churchill’s London, contested sites in Jerusalem, the NATO Headquarter Camp in Kosovo, buildings linked to the Japanese Canadian internment during WWII, the D-Day landing beaches of Normandy, the Nazi-occupied Channel Islands, Scotland’s Freemasons and Sigmund Freud’s Vienna.

To view more photographs by Leslie Hossack, please visit lesliehossack.com