The National Museum in Krakow is presenting an exhibition of the works of Vilhelm Hammershøi, an artist recognized as the greatest Danish painter at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. 

The Krakow exhibition is the result of cooperation with the National Museum in Poznań. The exhibition project of two national museums was held under the patronage of the deputy prime minister, minister of culture and national heritage, Prof. Piotr Gliński. The Danish partner of the exhibition is the Statens Museum for Kunst, the whole project is included in the “Polen-satsning” program of the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark. 

The selection of Hammershøi’s paintings and drawings presented at the National Museum in Krakow as well as archival photographs related to his life and work come from excellent Danish, Swedish, French and Dutch collections. The exhibition also offers the opportunity to see the works of Hammershøi, rarely presented to the public, belonging to the private collection of Ambassador John L. Loeb Jr. 

The Krakow exhibition includes paintings and drawings representative of Hammershøi’s art. Their careful selection allows exploring the artistic development and learning about the most important themes in the art of the Danish painter: pauses, silence and spaces “in-between”. The layout of the exhibition is set around key themes: interiors, landscapes and urban landscapes, portraits and self-portraits, and nudes. 

The narrative of the exhibition is co-created by the selection of photography – a medium important for Hammershøi, willingly experimenting with the method of framing and the lighting effects characteristic of this technique. Two annexes add an important supplement to the exhibition. The first one is devoted to the artist’s biography, while the second one, created in cooperation with the Center for Art Technological Studies and Conservation in Copenhagen, allows exploring the secrets of his workshop. 

Arkadiusz Słomczyński