Danish Venus: Elsa Sorensen

We were looking for a contemporary photograph of a Danish lovely to contrast with our Hammershøi painting and was contemplating featuring our favourite Dane, Helena Christensen. Agent DVD, over dinner last night, discouraged this (he is not a fan) and so instead we have found this rather nice photograph of Danish model Elsa Sorensen.

Perhaps surprisingly, this photograph was taken over fifty years ago. Miss Sorensen was Playboy's Playmate of the Month for September 1956 and was, in fact, the first non-American Playmate. Very contmporary she looks too and we are sure Hammershøi would have approved of the stark background if not the rather ornate (but effective) pose.

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Danish Venus: Female Model 1909 by Vilhelm Hammershøi

We saw this painting by Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916) last year in the Danish National Gallery in Copenhagen. Although he painted portraits and landscapes it is for his rather minimalist, Dutch-inspired, interiors that Hammershøi is best known. The painter was born and lived in Copenhagen where he started his studies at the age of eight and by his mid-teens he was already studying at the Royal Academy of Art in Copenhagen.

He used a very muted, almost monchrome palette and many of his cool interiors feature his wife, Ada.

Female model: studies

Hammershøi in his studio

We like the rather bleak, lonely, stillness of Hammershøi's painting and think it sums up the bleaker aspects of Baltic painting of a century ago.

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