Vilhelm Hammershøi

Around 1900, while much of European painting was chasing bright colour, a Danish painter was doing almost the opposite inside a Copenhagen apartment. Vilhelm Hammershøi lived at Strandgade 30, in the old Christianshavn quarter, from 1898 to 1909, and he painted its rooms over and over: bare walls, a door left open onto another door, cool light crossing an empty floor.

He worked in a narrow range of greys, muted greens and dull yellows, keeping bright tone almost entirely out. The furniture is sparse and arranged like objects in a still life. When a figure appears it is usually his wife Ida, seen from behind, turned toward a window or a table, her face withheld. The stillness has led people to compare him to Vermeer, the Dutch master of quiet interior light.

For much of the twentieth century he was half-forgotten outside Denmark. That reversed in recent decades, and he is now the most sought-after Danish painter on the international market. He died in Copenhagen in 1916, at 51, of throat cancer, having spent most of his working life inside a few sparsely furnished rooms.