Partner Thomasine
Andersson
Queer Places:
Karlberg Palace, Karlbergs slottsväg 1, 107 86 Stockholm, Sweden
Hanmora, 178 92 Adelsö, Sweden
Bona gård, Lötenvägen, 178 91 Munsö, Sweden
Brahegatan 52, 114 37 Stockholm, Sweden
Karl X Gustavs gata 23, 254 38 Helsingborg, Sweden
Grönegatan 28, 222 24 Lund, Sweden
Galärvarvskyrkogården
Stockholm
Hilma
af Klint (October 26, 1862 – October 21, 1944) was a Swedish artist and
mystic
whose paintings were among the first Western
abstract art.[1]
A considerable body of her abstract work predates the first purely abstract
compositions by
Kandinsky.[2]
She belonged to a group called "The Five", a circle of women who shared her
belief in the importance of trying to make contact with the so-called "High
Masters"—often by way of séances.[3]
Her paintings, which sometimes resemble diagrams, were a visual representation
of complex spiritual ideas. At the time, being a female and a lesbian was
accepted neither in the art world nor in mainstream society and when she died
in 1944, she stipulated in her will that her work should not be shown until 20
years after her death. She never married, but has a series of enduring
friendships with women, including her mother’s nurse,
Thomasine Andersson.
The fourth child of Captain Victor af Klint, a Swedish naval commander, and
Mathilda af Klint (née Sonntag), Hilma af Klint was born at Karlberg Palace
(Karlbergs slott), and spent summers with her family
at their manor Hanmora on the island of Adelsö in
Lake Mälaren. In these idyllic surroundings Hilma came into contact with
nature at an early stage in her life; and this deep association with natural
forms was to be an inspiration in her work. Later in life, Hilma af Klint came
to live on a permanent basis at Munsö, an island next to Adelsö.
From her family, Hilma af Klint inherited a great interest for
mathematics and
botany. She
showed an early ability in visual art, and after the family moved to
Stockholm, she studied at Tekniska skolan in Stockholm (Konstfack
today), where she learned portraiture and landscape painting. She was admitted
at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts at the age of twenty.[4]
During the years 1882–1887 she studied mainly drawing, and portrait- and
landscape painting. She graduated with honors, and was allocated a scholarship
in the form of a studio in the so-called "Atelier Building" (Ateljébyggnaden),
owned by The Academy of Fine Arts in the crossing between
Hamngatan
and
Kungsträdgården in central Stockholm. This was the main cultural hub in
the Swedish capital at that time. The same building also held
Blanch's Café and Blanchs Art Gallery, where the conflict stood between
the conventional art view of the Academy of Fine Arts, and the opposition
movement of the "Art Society" (Konstnärsförbundet), inspired by the French
En
Plein Air painters. Hilma af Klint began working in Stockholm, gaining
recognition for her landscapes, botanical drawings, and portraits.[5]
Her conventional painting became the source of financial income. But her
'life's work' remained a quite separate practice.
In 1880 her younger sister Hermina died, and it was at this time that the
spiritual dimension of her life began to develop.[6]
Her interest in abstraction and symbolism came from Hilma af Klint's
involvement in
spiritism,
very much in vogue at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century.
Hilma's first experiments in spiritual investigation began in 1879.[4]
Hilma af Klint became interested in the
Theosophy of
Madame Blavatsky and the philosophy of
Christian Rosencreutz. In 1908 she met
Rudolf Steiner, the founder of the
Anthroposophical Society, who was on a visit to Stockholm.[7]
Steiner initiated her in his own theories regarding the Arts, and would have a
certain influence on her paintings later in life. Several years later, in
1920, she met him again at the
Goetheanum in
Dornach,
Switzerland, the headquarters of the Anthroposophical Society. Between 1921
and 1930 she spent long periods at the Goetheanum.
Af Klint's work can be understood in the wider context of the
Modernist
search for new forms in artistic, spiritual, political and scientific systems
at the beginning of the 20th century.[8]
One will find the same interest in spirituality in other artists during this
same period, such as
Wassily Kandinsky,
Piet Mondrian,
Kasimir Malevitch and the French
Nabis
of which many were, like af Klint, inspired by the
Theosophical Movement.[9]
However, the artistic transition to abstract art and the nonfigurative
painting of Hilma af Klint would occur without any contacts with the
contemporary modern movements.
The works of Hilma af Klint are mainly spiritual, and her artistic work is
a consequence of this.[10]
At the Academy of Fine Arts she met
Anna
Cassel, the first of the four women with whom she later worked in "The
Five" (de Fem), a group of artists who shared her ideas, Cassel,
Cornelia Cederberg,
Sigrid Hedman, and
Mathilda Nilsson. ''The Five'' began their association as members of the
Edelweiss Society, which embraced a combination of the Theosophical teachings
of Helena Blavatsky and spiritualism. The group of female artists The Five
was engaged in the paranormal and regularly organized spiritistic séances.[4]
They opened each meeting with a prayer, followed by a meditation, a Christian
sermon, and a review and analysis of a text from the New Testament. All of
this would then be followed by a séance.[4]
They recorded in a book a completely new system of mystical thoughts in the
form of messages from higher spirits, called The High Masters ("Höga
Mästare"). One, Gregor, spoke thus: "All the knowledge that is not of the
senses, not of the intellect, not of the heart but is the property that
exclusively belongs to the deepest aspect of your being...the knowledge of
your spirit".[11]
Through her work with the group The Five Hilma af Klint created
experimental
automatic drawing as early as 1896, leading her towards an inventive
geometric
visual language capable of conceptualizing invisible forces both of the
inner and outer worlds. She explored world religions, atoms, and the
plant world and wrote extensively about her discoveries.[4]
As she got more familiar with this form of expression, Hilma af Klint was
assigned by the High Masters to create the paintings for the "Temple" –
however she never understood what this "Temple" referred to. Hilma af Klint
felt she was being directed by a force that would literally guide her hand.
She wrote in her notebook :
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.[12]
In 1906, after 20 years of artistic works, and at the age of 44, Hilma af
Klint painted her first series of abstract paintings.
The work for the Temple ran between 1906 and 1915, carried out in two
phases with an interruption between 1908 and 1912. As Hilma af Klint
discovered her new form of visual expression, she developed a new artistic
language. Her painting became more autonomous and more intentional. The
spiritual would however continue being the main source of creativity
throughout the rest of her life.
The collection for the Temple counts in total 193 paintings, grouped in
several sub-series. The major paintings, dated 1907, are extremely large in
size : each painting measures approximately 240 x 320 cm. This series, called
The Ten Largest, describes the different phases in life, from early
childhood to old age.
Quite apart from their diagrammatic purpose the paintings have a freshness
and a modern aesthetic of tentative line and hastily captured image: a
segmented circle, a helix bisected and divided into a spectrum of lightly
painted colors. The artistic world of Hilma af Klint is impregnated with
symbols, letters and words. The paintings often depict symmetrical dualities,
or reciprocities : up and down, in and out, earthly and esoteric, male and
female, good and evil. The colour choice is throughout metaphorical: blue
stands for the female spirit, yellow for the male one, and pink / red for
physical / spiritual love. The Swan and the Dove, names of two
series of the Paintings for the Temple, are also symbolic, representing
respectively transcendence and love. As gates to other dimensions, her
paintings call for interpretation on a narrative, esoteric and artistic level
while evoking primordial geometry and humanistic motifs.[13]
When Hilma af Klint had completed the works for the Temple, the spiritual
guidance ended. However, she pursued abstract painting, now independently from
any external influence.[14]
If the paintings for the Temple were mostly oil paintings, she now also used
watercolors. Her later paintings are significantly smaller in size. She
painted among others a series depicting the stand-points of different
religions at various stages in history, as well as representations of the
duality between the physical being and its equivalence on an esoteric level.
As Hilma af Klint pursued her artistic and esoteric research, it is possible
to perceive a certain inspiration from the artistic theories developed by the
Anthroposophical Society from 1920 onward.
All through her life, Hilma af Klint would seek to understand the mysteries
that she had come in contact with through her work. She produced more than 150
notebooks with her thoughts and studies.[15]
Hilma af Klint never dared to show her abstract work to her contemporaries.
Her major work, the one dedicated to the Temple, had been questioned and
rejected by Rudolf Steiner. Hilma af Klint drew the conclusion that her time
was not yet ready to understand them. More than 1200 paintings and drawings
were carefully stored away in her atelier, waiting for the future.
In 1899 Hilma af Klint moved to an apartment on Brahegatan 52, Stockholm,
together with her mother. After the mother died in 1920, Hilma af Klint moved to Helsingborg, first Kullagatan 32 and then in 1934 Karl X Gustafs gata 23. She
lived with the mother's nurse Thomasine Andersson. Hilma af Klint and Thomasine Andersson came to be inseparable friends in life. They both lived annually in Dornach , Switzerland, between 1920 and 1930.
In 1935 Hilma af Klint and Thomasine Andersson moved to Lund,
Grönegatan 28, where
Thomasine Andersson died five years later. In 1944 Hilma af Klint moved to her
cousin Hedvig af Klint who had a villa in Ösby, Djursholm, outside Stockholm. Hilma af Klint died in 1944, nearly 82 years old, in the aftermath of a
traffic accident, having only exhibited her works a handful of times, mainly
at spiritual conferences and gatherings.[16]
In her will, Hilma af Klint left all her abstract paintings to her nephew,
a vice-admiral in the
Swedish Royal Navy. She specified that her work should be kept secret for
at least 20 years after her death. When the boxes were opened at the end of
the 1960s, very few persons had knowledge of what would be revealed.
In 1970 her paintings were offered as a gift to
Moderna Museet in Stockholm, which declined the donation. Thanks to the
art historian Åke Fant, her art was introduced to an international audience in
the 1980s, when he presented her at a
Nordik
conference in
Helsinki
in 1984. Erik af Klint then donated thousands of drawings and paintings to a
foundation bearing the artist's name in the 1970s.[17]
The collection of abstract paintings of Hilma af Klint counts more than
1200 pieces. It is owned and managed by the Hilma af Klint Foundation[18]
in Stockholm, Sweden. In 2017, Norwegian architectural firm
Snøhetta presented plans for an exhibition centre dedicated to af Klint in
Järna, south of Stockholm, with estimated building costs of between €6
million and €7.5 million.[19]
In February 2018, the Foundation signed a long-term agreement of cooperation
with the Moderna Museet, thereby confirming the perennity of the Hilma af
Klint Room, i.e. a dedicated space at the museum where a dozen works of the
artist are shown on a continuous basis.[20]
My published books:
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