Hilma Af Klint

A highly anticipated biography of the enigmatic and popular Swedish painter. The Swedish painter Hilma af Klint (1862–1944) was forty-four years old when she broke with the academic tradition in which she had been trained to produce a body of radical, abstract works the likes of which had never been seen before. Today, it is widely accepted that af Klint was one of the earliest abstract academic painters in Europe. But this is only part of her story. Not only was she a working female artist, she was also an avowed clairvoyant and mystic. Like many of the artists at the turn of the twentieth century who developed some version of abstract painting, af Klint studied Theosophy, which holds that science, art, and religion are all reflections of an underlying life-form that can be harnessed through meditation, study, and experimentation. Well before Kandinsky, Mondrian, and Malevich declared themselves the inventors of abstraction, af Klint was working in a nonrepresentational mode, producing a powerful visual language that continues to speak to audiences today. The exhibition of her work in 2018 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City attracted more than 600,000 visitors, making it the most-attended show in the history of the institution. Despite her enormous popularity, there has not yet been a biography of af Klint—until now. Inspired by her first encounter with the artist’s work in 2008, Julia Voss set out to learn Swedish and research af Klint’s life—not only who the artist was but what drove and inspired her. The result is a fascinating biography of an artist who is as great as she is enigmatic.

The first detailed survey of Swedish artist Hilma af Klint’s groundbreaking Tree of Knowledge series “Revelatory and sublime. . . . Her work remains conceptually open enough for viewers to draw their own conclusions, insert their own meaning and feel transported to other glorious worlds.” —The New York Times One of the most inventive artists of the twentieth century, af Klint was a pioneer of abstraction. Her first forays into nonobjective painting preceded the work of Kandinsky and Mondrian and radically mined the fields of science and religion. Deeply interested in spiritualism and philosophy, af Klint developed an iconography that explores esoteric concepts in metaphysics, as demonstrated in Tree of Knowledge. This rarely seen series of works on paper renders orbital, enigmatic forms, visual allegories of unification and separateness, darkness and light, beginning and end, life and death, and spirit and matter. Published on the occasion of the exhibition Hilma af Klint: Tree of Knowledge at David Zwirner, New York, in 2021 and David Zwirner, London, in 2022, this book features a text by the art historian Susan Aberth examining af Klint’s spiritual and theosophical influences. With a conversation between curator Helen Molesworth and the US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo discussing connections between Tree of Knowledge and Native theories, the publication broadens the scope of philosophical interpretations of af Klint's timeless work. Also included is a newly commissioned essay by the celebrated af Klint scholar Julia Voss, a contribution by the artist Suzan Frecon, and a text by art historian Max Rosenberg that further develops the conversation around why af Klint’s work was not recognized in its time.

A highly anticipated biography of the enigmatic and popular Swedish painter. The Swedish painter Hilma af Klint (1862–1944) was forty-four years old when she broke with the academic tradition in which she had been trained to produce a body of radical, abstract works the likes of which had never been seen before. Today, it is widely accepted that af Klint was one of the earliest abstract academic painters in Europe. But this is only part of her story. Not only was she a working female artist, she was also an avowed clairvoyant and mystic. Like many of the artists at the turn of the twentieth century who developed some version of abstract painting, af Klint studied Theosophy, which holds that science, art, and religion are all reflections of an underlying life-form that can be harnessed through meditation, study, and experimentation. Well before Kandinsky, Mondrian, and Malevich declared themselves the inventors of abstraction, af Klint was working in a nonrepresentational mode, producing a powerful visual language that continues to speak to audiences today. The exhibition of her work in 2018 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City attracted more than 600,000 visitors, making it the most-attended show in the history of the institution. Despite her enormous popularity, there has not yet been a biography of af Klint—until now. Inspired by her first encounter with the artist’s work in 2008, Julia Voss set out to learn Swedish and research af Klint’s life—not only who the artist was but what drove and inspired her. The result is a fascinating biography of an artist who is as great as she is enigmatic.

An engaging look at three women artists' pathbreaking explorationof abstraction

Hilma af Klint (1862-1944), an artist whose work is still far too unknown to a wider public, eschewed representational painting as early as 1906. Between 1906 and 1915 she produced nearly two hundred abstract paintings, some of which are in monumental formats. Like Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, and Kazimir Malevich, who have previously been regarded as the main protagonists of abstract art, Hilma af Klint was influenced by contemporary spiritual movements, such as spiritism, theosophy, and anthroposophy. Her multifaceted imagery strives to provide insight into the different dimensions of existence, where microcosm and macrocosm reflect one another. Hilma af Klint left more than one thousand paintings, watercolors, and sketches. This publication presents her most important abstract works as well as paintings and works on paper that have never before been seen in public, enhancing our understanding of her oeuvre. (English edition ISBN 978-3-7757-3489-9) Exhibition schedule: Moderna Museet, Stockholm February 16-May 26, 2013 - Hamburger Bahnhof -Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin, June 15-October 6, 2013 - Musée Picasso, Malaga October 21, 2013-February 9, 2014

A moving biography, told in vivid illustrations, this graphic novel features key moments in the life of Swedish artist and pioneer of abstract painting Hilma af Klint (1862–1944). Long underrecognized, af Klint has been amid a sensational rediscovery that continues to take art audiences by storm. Artist Philipp Deines traces the story of now world-famous af Klint’s unique life and groundbreaking oeuvre through five chapters featuring her development as an artist, her family background, and her relationship to the spiritual. Highlighting how she came to her distinctive paintings, her spiritual quest, and the friends who helped her, this is a story of the strength it took af Klint to continue as an artist against all odds. Beautifully drawn, brightly colored, and well researched, this graphic novel is a new way of looking at the story of an artist. Referencing Julia Voss’s new biography of af Klint, Deines presents an accessible and lively introduction for many ages. Biography, art history, and contemporary narrative style merge and complement each other in this magnificent visual world.

Once considered an outsider artist, after her show at the Guggenheim Museum was seen by more than half-a-mil-lion visitors, Hilma af Klint firmly established her place in art history. She has also been the subject of documenta-ry films and biographies. In 2013, Iris Müller-Westermann organized the first institutional exhibition of af Klint's work. Now she presents us with the latest information and research in an extensive survey show at the Moder-na Museet in Malmö. Of crucial importance is the issue of spirituality in af Klint's painting-how she managed to translate both the material and the immaterial world into a pictorial vision. The accompanying exhibition catalogue is the first to investigate, from a variety of perspectives, the question of how this trailblazing abstract artist linked her painting to a higher consciousness. Essays by leading historians of theosophy and a quantum physicist, among others, provide enlightening insight into a world in which both the visualization of atoms and spiritual séances alike became artistic material-a world that fascinates us even more than ever.