First Hammershøi’s in a public Dutch collection soon at the Boijmans (escorted by Richter and Gober)
-
- Vilhelm Hammershøi, The Balcony Room at ‘Spurveskjul’ [Sparrow’s Nest], 1911. Oil on canvas, 43,2 x 53,3 cm. Collection Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.
-
- Gerrit Kiljan, Telephone ‘Heemaf H’ ‘Ptt 7216’, 1953. Bakelite, 22 x 13,3 x 25,5 cm. Collection Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.
-
- George Segal, Girl Looking Through Window (Homage to Rembrandt), 1972. Wood, glas, plastic, textile, 243,5 x 100,5 x 3,5 cm. Collection Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.
-
- Pieter Jansz. Saenredam, Interior of Saint John’s church, Utrecht, 1636. Black and white chalk, pen and brown ink, 27,7 x 41,4 cm. Collection Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.
-
- Robert Gober, Untitled (Shoe), 1990. Wax, 8 x 20 x 8 cm. Collection Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.
-
- Gerhard Richter, The Chair, 1965. Oil on canvas, 92 x 72,4 cm. Collection Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.
-
- Vilhelm Hammershøi, Ida Reading a Letter, 1916, oil on canvas.
As we wrote a few months ago in occasion of our visit to the museum, the Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam is actually one of the most inspiring places available for those who believe that all the artworks are indeed contemporary and that the dialogue between the past and the present is an extremely enriching activity to be promoted at any level.
That is why we are delighted to announce that the “The Balcony Room at Spurveskjul” by Vilhelm Hammershøi – an enigmatic oil sketch painting acquired by the museum at the last edition of the TEFAF Maastricht thanks to the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt, the BankGiro Loterij and a gift from a private individual from Rotterdam – will be presented for the first time to the public next Saturday. And of course the piece will not be left alone.
A group of artworks have been selected to warmly welcome the painting, the first by Hammershøi entering a public Dutch collection, following the painter’s revival which started in 2008 thanks to his exhibition at that the Royal Academy and supported by the auction record settled in June 2012 at Sotheby’s by his “Ida Reading a Letter” (paid £ 1,721,250). The members of this peculiar welcoming committee will be Gerhard Richter, Robert Gober, George Segal, Gerrit Kiljan and Pieter Jansz. The suspended interior painted in 1911 by Hammershøi in his favourite summerhouse at Spurveskjul, near Copenhagen, perhaps in preparation of a self portrait he realised some time later, will dialogue with a grey painting of a chair, with a red female shoe, a real door from which a girl is looking outside, an old black telephone, and a drawing picturing the interior of the church of Saint-Janskerk in Utrecht.
Sjarel Ex, the director of the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen declared that “this painting connects with 17th century works in the museum collection by De Hooch, Metsu, Saenredam and has the same kind of atmospheres of a Morandi still life”. Furthermore, the Museum also acquired an installation by Oscar Tuazon last year, consisting of a gallery wall and a door that is permanently opened. The work, executed in 2013, will not exhibited this time, but we are pretty sure that someone is already at work to organize the meeting, probably thinking that the color grey is, not only in art, a precise state of mind.
November 25, 2020
