Hammershøi: The Eye that Listens, Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum, Madrid – 17 February to 31 May 2026

This will be the first retrospective in Spain devoted to the Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershøi. He is renowned, above all, for his atmospheric paintings of the inside of the Copenhagen apartment he shared with his wife, Ida. She appears in many of them — alone and, more often than not, with her back to us. There’s a hushed quality to these scenes, something to which the show’s subtitle (‘the eye that listens’) alludes.

The curators will consider what set Hammershøi’s work apart from similar domestic interiors by Danish peers of his (such as Peter Ilsted and Carl Vilhelm Holsøe). They will also explore the role that Ida played in his creative process, and the importance in his oeuvre of lesser-known work, in the genres of portraiture and landscape painting. In July 2026, this exhibition will transfer to the Kunsthaus Zürich in Switzerland.