New York, where within a mile radius you can see eight: three at the Frick Collection, five at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Compared with the hundreds by Rembrandt or the thousands by Picasso, 37 paintings seemed achievable.Īt first I didn’t make special trips, but made sure to seek out Vermeer when I was visiting a city. It was then that I turned my natural interest into a challenge to see all of his work. On a visit to Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, I laid eyes on four. In 1982 I was a student in Britain for four months and saw two Vermeers at the National Gallery in London. I had probably seen them before and just not clocked them – though it’s hard to understand why not. They are beautifully lit and have a calm, transcendent quality that makes us want to climb inside to experience that feeling too.Īt the National Gallery in my hometown, Washington DC, there were three Vermeers (and a “cautiously attributed” fourth). The paintings are beautifully lit and have a calm, transcendent quality that makes us want to climb inside to experience that feeling tooīut what paintings! Most are of people alone, often women, set apart from us, performing domestic activities like pouring milk, writing a letter, putting on a necklace, playing a lute. Just 35 paintings that we’re certain of, plus two others that may or may not be by him. We have no letters to or from him, no other writing, not even any drawings. He trained as an artist, traded in paintings, married a Catholic woman, had 11 surviving children, was in debt several times, and died, probably of a stress-induced heart attack or stroke, in 1675 at the age of 43. Vermeer lived his whole life in Delft, a small town just south of The Hague. While knowing nothing about Vermeer, I decided to seek out more of his work. Smitten by the lovely girl with her blue and yellow turban, her wide eyes and her enigmatic expression, I bought myself a copy, which I have to this day. In the autumn of the previous year, 1981, I first saw a poster of Vermeer’s Girl With a Pearl Earring at my sister’s apartment.
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