Hilma af Klint: The Spiritual Pioneer of Abstraction

Hilma af Klint, a Swedish artist, created groundbreaking abstract paintings in the early 1900s, guided by spiritual entities. She was part of the first generation of Swedish women allowed to become professional painters. Her public work focused on botanical illustration, but privately she explored abstraction influenced by Theosophy, Anthroposophy, and spiritualism. After her sister Hermina's death in 1880, af Klint sought contact with the spirit world. In 1896, she co-founded De Fem (The Five), a group that conducted seances and received messages from 'higher beings.' In 1904, these beings instructed her to create paintings for a spiral temple. From November 1906 to April 1908, she produced 111 works known as Paintings for the Temple, many over 10 feet tall, using automatic drawing. She sought guidance from Rudolf Steiner, a German philosopher and mystic, but their 1908 meeting in Stockholm was disappointing; Steiner disapproved of her art. Following this, af Klint ceased painting from 1908 to 1912, possibly due to disappointment or to care for her blind mother. She returned with a more geometric style and Christian iconography, including the Parsifal series inspired by Wagner's opera. In the 1920s, she visited the Goetheanum, headquarters of the Anthroposophical Society, and sent botanical works to Steiner. She returned to botanical illustration, focusing on spiritual portraits of plants. Her work remained largely unknown during her lifetime.