Sorry, this website is not available for mobile devices yet!
Hilma af Klint
Hilma af Klint, The Secret Paintings. Art Gallery of New South Wales.
1862-1944
about
A groundbreaking pioneer of abstract art, Hilma af Klint created esoteric, mystical paintings that have found a wide audience since being repopularized in the 21st century.
Hilma af Klint was once known as a minor academic Swedish artist.
Born in 1862, she had been one of the first women to graduate from the Royal Academy
of Fine Arts in Stockholm and had exhibited at the Swedish General Art Association.
of Fine Arts in Stockholm and had exhibited at the Swedish General Art Association.
But these paintings on display at Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s exhibition revealed another life, a different art.
Her involvement with spiritualism had radicalised her art to such an extent she can only be described as one of the great abstract artists.
it was
When Hilma af Klint began creating radically abstract paintings in 1906, they were like little that had been seen before: bold, colorful, and untethered from any recognizable references to the physical world.
6
0
1
9
It was years before Vasily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, Piet Mondrian, and others would take similar strides to rid their own artwork of representational content.
1906
Yet while many of her better-known contemporaries published manifestos and exhibited widely, af Klint kept her groundbreaking paintings largely private.
She rarely exhibited them and, convinced the world was not yet ready to understand her work, stipulated that it not be shown for 20 years following her death.
but it wasn’t until
that people first saw her art
her work was all but unseen for
42
years
took for her paintings to begin receiving serious attention
30
scientific and mystical change
scientific and mystical change
scientific and mystical change
In 1896, she joined with four colleagues in a group they called «De Fem» (The Five) whose investigation of the spirit world included automatic drawing.
In 1906, her spiritual communications led to her spirit guide Amaliel “commissioning” a new series, The Paintings for the Temple.
“the one great task that I carried out in my lifetime.”
science and theosophy influenced many artists
The transformation of af Klint from competent academic to inspirational mystical abstractionist is a result of the same ideas that influenced many of her contemporaries including Kandinsky, Mondrian, Klee and Malevich.
The scientific discoveries of the late 19th and early 20th century encouraged many to question the very nature of the universe.
At the end of the 19th century a new religion, Theosophy, appeared, incorporating both ancient wisdom and modern science that was very popular in Europe and U.S.
people questioned the very nature of the universe
the pictures were painted directly through me, without preliminary drawings and with great power.
i had no idea what the pictures would depict and still i worked quickly and surely without changing a single brush-stroke.
i had no idea what the pictures would depict and still i worked quickly and surely without changing a single brush-stroke.
it was not the case that i was to blindly obey the spirits, but that i was to imagine that they were always standing by my side.
The first Paintings for the Temple were completed five years before Kandinsky proclaimed his revolutionary argument for abstraction in The Spiritual in Art.
The Paintings for the Temple, which eventually comprised 193 works, in many series, and which Hilma af Klint worked on from 1906 to 1915.
the paintings for the temple
works
193
1907
the ten largest
Hilma af Klint painted her great series of works, The Ten Largest.
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
1908
Hilma af Klimt showed her recently finished the Paintings of the Temple to Rudolph Steiner, an Austrian occultist philosopher.
He failed to understand her work, and did not appreciate the way she saw herself as working with spirits.
It is supposed to be one of the reasons why Hilma af Klint specified her art be kept secret until 20 years after her death. The world was not ready to understand and accept what she knew was groundbreaking work.
Hilma af Klint died in 1944.
In 1970, after seeing the riches of his aunt’s creative legacy, her nephew Erik offered af Klint’s art to Sweden’s Moderna Museet. The gift was rejected out of hand when the director heard she was a mystic and a medium.
It was perhaps fortunate this gift was rejected. Almost all her art is now owned by the af Klint Foundation, created by her family. It will never be scattered by the art market nor be the subject of speculation by dealers.
Instead, it is both a constant resource for scholars and for audiences to marvel at the meditative beauty of her forms, the incandescence of her colour, and the way she opens eyes to new ways of seeing.
others about Hilma af Klint
others about Hilma af Klint
others about Hilma af Klint
“The idea that a woman got there first, and with such style, is beyond thrilling. Yes, I know art is not a competition; every artist’s “there” is a different place. Abstraction is a pre-existing condition, found in all cultures.
But still: af Klint’s “there” seems so radical, so unlike anything else going on at the time. Her paintings definitively explode the notion of modernist abstraction as a male project. Despite several decades during which modernism’s history has been expanded and diversified, there is something towering about the emergence of af Klint, which really began in earnest in the 1980s.”
But still: af Klint’s “there” seems so radical, so unlike anything else going on at the time. Her paintings definitively explode the notion of modernist abstraction as a male project. Despite several decades during which modernism’s history has been expanded and diversified, there is something towering about the emergence of af Klint, which really began in earnest in the 1980s.”
Roberta Smith
Halina Dyrschka
“Not only did she create art that was ahead of its time, she also represented a view of life that remains absolutely forward-looking to this day. Whether in terms of gender equality or her visionary view of religion and spirituality, here is an artist who has something significant to say, regardless of taste preferences or any subjective understanding of art.”
Deviant Women podcast episode about Hilma af Klint
listen to deviant women podcast episode about Hilma af Klint
listen to deviant women podcast episode about Hilma af Klint
listen to deviant women podcast episode about Hilma af Klint
This website has been created for educational purposes only
1862-1944
