Photo showing the automatic drawing resembling handwritten note or scribble on the left. On the right, a black and white photograph of Hilma af Klint sitting on a chair.
A slightly oblong white circle filling the canvas against a blue background. Within a circle, more circular shapes repeat. Some of them are egg shapes with dark blue or black with lines in them. Others are painted in light yellow and pink. Towards the bottom of the circle hangs apale pink tear-drop shape. In the center of the white circle, a white line forms another circle with what seems like a letter H. To the sides, white lines form two crosses on top of all other circular shapes.
In the center, a purple triangle shape is placed on top of a vertical rectangle shape that is made up with six squares in black, white, green, and olive green. It is placed against a rectangle shape with its top half painted in blue and the bottom half painted in yellow. A golden circle floats above. The rest of the canvas seems unpainted, and the bleed from the paint is visible around the blue and yellow rectangles. Some writing is visible on the top left corner.

Swedish artist Hilma af Klint (1862 – 1944) was a true pioneer in abstract art, though her work was almost never seen outside her close circle during her lifetime. In her will, af Klint wrote that her works were not to be shown until twenty years after her death. She was convinced that her contemporaries were not ready to understand their meaning.

af Klint’s abstract paintings predate the first abstract works by Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, and Kazimir Malevich, male artists who are still regarded as the forerunners of twentieth-century abstract art.

af Klint’s powerful, groundbreaking, and striking oeuvre challenges the history of art as previously written. March is Women’s History Month, and quite fittingly, we’re kicking off with Hilma af Klint!


Image 1: Page spread: Left: Automatic drawing resembling handwritten note or scribble. Right: Black and white photograph of Hilma af Klint sitting on a chair.

Image 2: The Large Figure Paintings, No. 5, Group III, The Key to All Works to Date, The WU/Rose Series, 1907

Image 3: Cat. 163. No 4, Series V, 1920.

Hilma af Klint : a pioneer of abstraction
Edited by Iris Müller-Westermann, with Jo Widoff ; with contributions by David Lomas, Iris Müller-Westermann, Pascal Rousseau, Helmut Zander.
Ostfildern : Hatje Cantz, [2013]
295 pages : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 28 cm.
Moderna Museet exhibition catalogue ; no. 375, 0347-9196
English
Klint, Hilma af, 1862-1944
[2013]
HOLLIS number: 990139574170203941