HILMA AF KLINT

Early Years

Hilma af Klint was born in 1862 in the Karlberg Palace near Stockholm that had been converted into a military academy (her father taught naval cadets). af Klint began to see visions and participated in her first séances when she was 17. She studied at the Technical School in Stockholm (where she first became friends with fellow art student Anna Cassel). Her sister Hermina died aged only 10 in 1880. Between 1882 and 1888, af Klint studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm, and her figurative paintings were shown at exhibitions across Europe. Her practice and approach to art changed dramatically in 1891, when she received messages from spiritual beings for the first time.

Hilma af Klint: Artworks

While Hilma af Klint’s figurative practice aligned with the expectations around artists at the turn of the 20th century, she is now much more widely known for her theosophy- and spiritualism-influenced pieces, which were highly avant-garde and among the world’s earliest abstract works. Her bold compositions, guided by communication with spirits—with circles, spirals, and cosmically inspired shapes—featured bright colours and geometry, anticipating many of the themes that would become associated with modern art. As her work matured, she saw herself less as an interpreter of spiritual messages, taking more control of the creative process herself.

Hilma af Klint kept these paintings hidden, although she catalogued all her work. Although she stipulated that her paintings remain unexhibited until 20 years after her death, it was actually a lot later before they were recognised. In 1986, 42 years after af Klint died, The Spiritual in Art exhibition in Los Angeles brought her work to the world’s attention, and a 2019 survey at the Guggenheim in New York City attracted further interest.

• Hilma af Klint created the Primordial Chaos (1906–1907) series following an instruction she received from the spiritual guide Amaliel during a séance. This series considers the origins of creation, based on the practice of theosophy, a late 19th-century movement that used meditation and intuition to establish knowledge of a deeper reality.
• Primordial Chaos marked the beginning of the Paintings for the Temple collection (1906–1915). She created 193 defiantly non-figurative paintings, seeing masculine and feminine energies represented by shapes and helixes. Guided by spirits, she explained: “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 brushstroke.”

Hilda af Klint: Select Posthumous Exhibitions

Select Solo Exhibitions

• Hlma af Klint, Grand Palais, Paris (2026)
• Hilma af Klint: Artist and Visionary, The National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin (2026)
• Hilma af Klint: Proper Summons, Museum of Contemporary Art Busan (2025)
• Hilma af Klint: What Stands Behind the Flowers, MoMA, New York City (2025)
• Hilma af Klint: The Beyond, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (2025)
• Hilma af Klint, Guggenheim Bilbao (2024)
• Hilma af Klint and Wassily Kandinsky: Dream of the Future, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldorf (2024)
• Forms of Life: Hilma af Klint and Piet Mondrian, Kunstmuseum Den Haag, The Hague (2023) (and Tate Modern)
• Hilma af Klint: The Ten Largest Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2022)
• Hilma af Klint: The Secret Paintings City Gallery Wellington (2021) (and Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney)
• Hilma af Klint—Artist, researcher, medium, Moderna Museet, Malmo (2020)
• Hilma af Klint : Paintings for the Future, Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York City (2019)
• Hilma af Klint: Painting the Unseen, Serpentine Galleries, London (2016)
• Hilma af Klint – A Pioneer of Abstraction, Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm (2013) (and touring)
• The Secret Paintings of Hilma af Klint, Museum voor Moderne Kunst, Arnhem (2010)
• Målningarna till Templet (The Paintings for the Temple), Liljevalchs Konsthall, Stockholm (1999)
• The Secret Pictures by Hilma af Klint, MoMA PS1, New York City (1989)

Select Group Exhibitions

• In Bloom—Art and Botany, Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde, Stockholm
• Yellow: Van Gogh and His Times, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (2026)
• Northern Lights, Buffalo AKG Art Museum (2026)
• Fata Morgana, Fondazione Nicola Trussardi/ Museo Palazzo Morando, Milan (2025)
• The Atomic Age, Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris (2025)
• Women in Abstraction, Guggenheim Bilbao (2021)
• The Origins of the World. The Invention of Nature in the 19th Century, Musée d’Orsay, Paris (2020)
• Infinite Garden, From Giverny to Amazonia, Centre Pompidou Metz (2017)
• 55th Venice Biennale (2013)
• Never The Same River—Possible Futures, Probable Pasts, Camden Arts Centre, London (2010)
• Traces du Sacré (Traces of the Sacred), Haus der Kunst Munich (2008)
• Bara Färg—Färg som andlighet (Only Colour—Colour as Spirituality), Gothenburg Museum of Art (2006)
• Utopi och verklighet (Utopia and Reality), Museum of Modern Art, Stockholm (2000)
• Det andliga i konsten (The Spiritual in Art) (toured Sweden 1991)
• The Spiritual in Art—Abstract Painting 1890–1985, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (1986) (and touring)

Further Reading

• The Hilma af Klint Foundation
• Hilma af Klint official Instagram
• 2025 article from The New Yorker about Hilma af Klint’s rediscovery and complicated legacy
• The Hilma’s Ghost project

Hilma Af Klint FAQs

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