Though the Swedish painter Hilma af Klint was unknown to a large part of the world during her lifetime, today she is regarded with artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, and Kazimir Malevich. Hilma af Klint was born in 1862 in Solna, Sweden, and created a total of around 1000 paintings, sketches, and watercolors up to her death in 1944. It was only recently that the Swedish artist, a daughter from a noble house, began to receive more attention for her artistic work. Below are seven interesting facts about this exceptional artist of her time.
1. Hilma af Klint Was the Earliest Painter of Abstract Art
For a long time, it was believed that Wassily Kandinsky introduced abstraction into painting in 1911. However, we now know that Hilma af Klint was already producing abstract paintings in 1906. She is thus the earliest representative of abstract art and was considered a good observer. Her very early naturalistic subjects, flower pictures, and portraits corresponded to the expectations of a woman from a good family at the turn of the century, especially a daughter of the nobility. While Hilma af Klint painted naturalistic scenes in the early days of her painting and filled her canvases and drawing sheets with flower motifs and portraits, she broke with naturalistic painting at the age of 44 and turned to abstract art.
2. One of the First Women Ever To Study at an Art University
Before Hilma af Klint started creating her large-format paintings, the Swedish artist studied painting at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm. This was possible for her because Sweden was one of the first countries in Europe to offer women the opportunity to study at a university. After her studies, she moved to a studio in Stockholm, where she spent the first years of her artistic career.
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3. She Knew She Was Ahead of Her Time
Hilma af Klint is often called the painter of the future. This attribution was also one she realized about herself. In her will, the painter arranged that her works of art should not be exhibited to a large audience until twenty years after her death. The artist was convinced that her contemporaries would not be able to grasp the full meaning of her paintings.
In an article for AD magazine, art critic and Hilma af Klint biographer Julia Voss explains that the artist marked many of her works with the character combination “+x”. According to a description of the abbreviation by the artist, the works with this symbol were “all works that are to be opened 20 years after my death”. It was not until the mid-1980s that the works of the Swedish artist were first exhibited and appreciated in their entirety. A legend that exists about Hilma af Klint might agree with her opinion about her contemporaries: When her works had been first offered to the Modern Museet in Stockholm in 1970, the donation was initially rejected. It took another ten years or so until an understanding of the art historical value of Hilma af Klint’s paintings was fully established.
4. Klint Was Part of a Spiritual Women’s Group Called “De Fem” [The Five]
Hilma af Klint had a strong interest in Theosophy and Anthroposophy. In the late 1870s, she began to participate in séances and make contact with the dead. In 1896, she and four other women finally founded the group “De Fem” [The Five] to get in contact with “high masters” in another dimension through the back of glasses. Participating in these practices also slowly changed her work. During that time, she turned to automatic drawing. Later, she made it her task to depict in her paintings the mystery of the unity of the universe, theorizing that while in reality, it is visible in duality.
According to researchers, Hilma af Klint’s interest in the supernatural stemmed both from the early death of her sister, whose spirit she tried to stay in contact with, and from a general interest typical of the late 19th century. An interest in the supernatural was considered a phenomenon of her time – a period in which there were many inventions in the field of the invisible: the telephone, radio waves, electromagnetic waves, and ultrasound.
In the years 1917 and 1918 Hilma af Klint began a very intensive examination of the supernatural. This can be seen today in her Studies on Spiritual Life, which include the Parsifal Series. This series contains elements that can also be found in other works of the artist: concentric circles, geometric forms, and bright colors.
5. She Designed a Temple for Her Works
The artist Hilma af Klint had the idea that her works should be withheld from the public until 20 years after her death, and the Swedish artist also imagined the presentation of her works in a very special way. Hilma af Klint designed a temple for her paintings, in which she decided the visitors should walk through in a spiral. From picture to picture, from series to series, they were to stride right up to the top of the temple to the dome, which was to provide a view of the stars.
The artist was very impressed by the teachings of the theosophist and anthroposophist Rudolf Steiner, and she could have been influenced by him and his emptiness in her idea of such a temple, as well as from her visits to Steinert in Switzerland. It is said that it was the influence of Rudolf Steinert in the 1920s that made Hilma af Klint stop using geometrical forms in her painting.
6. The Paintings For The Temple (1906 – 1915) Are Known as Hilma af Klint’s Magnum Opus
The painter began her Paintings for the Temple in 1906 and completed them in 1915, a period during which she created around 193 paintings in various series and groups. As the title of the cycle suggests, she envisioned these paintings in her temple, which was never realized. On the painting process of the Paintings for the Temple, the artist said: “The pictures were painted directly through me, without any preliminary drawings, and with great force. I had no idea what the paintings were supposed to depict; nevertheless, I worked swiftly and surely, without changing a single brush stroke.”
Hilma af Klint is said to have painted like a madwoman when it came to these pictures in her early years. In 1908 alone, 111 paintings in various formats are believed to have been created. A famous series from the large painting cycle is called The Ten Largest. The abstract compositions describe the course of life, from birth to death, reduced to a few forms and bright colors.
7. Her Posthumous Fame Has Skyrocketed in the 21st Century
Hilma af Klint was one of the most exciting artists of the 20th century. She was a pioneer of abstract art and also a pioneer in her role as a woman. For decades the Swedish artist was known to only a few, and her mystical works existed only under the radar of an (art-historical) public. With the feminist movement and the realization that Hilma af Klint was possibly the earliest example of abstraction in art, she gained much more recognition in the 1980s and 1990s.
Today, the Guggenheim Museum in New York reminds the viewer of a temple that Hilma af Klint would have wished for her artworks. Fittingly, a major retrospective of the artist’s work took place at the Guggenheim Museum, in the Museum of Abstract Art, from October 2018 to April 2019. Since a large retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York and a change in taste and perspective in the general public, she has gained in importance abruptly.
Originally published: September 5, 2020. Last update: July 15, 2024, by Elizabeth Berry.
