A display apparatus (10) including a light source (15) for forming a beam of light (130). A pre-polarizer (45) polarizes the beam of light (130) to provide a polarized beam of light. A wire grid polarization beamsplitter (50) receives the polarized beam of light and transmits the polarized beam of light which has a first polarization, and reflects the polarized beam of light which has a second polarization. A reflective spatial light modulator (55) selectively modulates the polarized beam of light that has a first polarization to encode image data thereon in order to form a modulated beam (360) and reflects the modulated beam back to the wire grid polarization beamsplitter (50). A compensator (260) is located between the wire grid polarization beamsplitter (50) and the reflective spatial light modulator (55) for conditioning oblique and skew rays of the modulated beam (360). The wire grid polarization beamsplitter (50) reflects the compensated modulated beam (360) and the wire gird polarization beamsplitter (50) is rotated in plane to optimize the contrast. A polarization analyzer (60) removes residual light of the opposite polarization state from the compensated modulated beam (360). Image-forming optics (20) form an image from the compensated modulated beam (360).