1862 -1944 · Stockholm, Mälaren and spiritual abstraction

Spirals, symbolic colors and monumental cycles make Hilma af Klint a radical pioneer of an abstraction designed to make visible the spiritual order of the world.

Hilma af Klint was born in Stockholm in 1862 into a family linked to the navy and cartography. She studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts from 1882 to 1887 and obtained with honors professional training that was still rare for a woman. Portraits, landscapes and botanical illustrations first ensured her a public career in naturalistic language. At the same time, the death of her sister and her interest in science, spiritualism, theosophy and then anthroposophy guided her towards invisible research. At the same time, the death of her sister and her interest in science, spiritualism, theosophy and then anthroposophy first guided her towards invisible research. At the same time, the death of her sister and her interest in science, spiritualism, theosophy and then anthroposophy first guided her towards invisible research. In 1896, she founded the group of Five with four women. Sessions, automatic writing and collective drawings became methods of exploration. From 1906, af Klint undertakes the Paintings for the Temple, a set of series intended to represent the spiritual evolution of humanity. Primordial chaos introduces letters, colors, cells, spirals and polarities into a space that no longer depends on direct observation. The Ten Greatest, painted in 1907 in monumental formats, cross childhood, youth, adulthood and old age through floral, oval and diagrammatic shapes. After an interruption devoted to her mother, she resumed the cycle in 1912 with The Swan and The Dove, oval and diagrammatic. After an interruption devoted to her mother, she resumed the cycle in 1912 with The Swan and The Dove, where floral, oval and diagrammatic shapes. After an interruption devoted to her mother, she resumed the cycle in 1912 with The Swan and The Dove, where floral, oval and diagrammatic shapes. After an interruption devoted to her mother, she resumed the cycle in 1912 with The Swan and The Dove, where black and white, masculine and feminine, matter and spirit passed from opposition to unity. The three Altarpieces completed the project in 1915 with a geometric rise towards light. The Tree of Knowledge combines plant organism, diagram and cosmology. Af Klint also fills more than one hundred and twenty-five notebooks to comment on the systems, signs and instructions that structure her work. Convinced that her time was not ready, she showed these paintings very little and asked that they not be revealed immediately after her death. She died in 1944, leaving her nephew with more than a thousand works. She died in 1944, leaving her nephew with more than a thousand works. Their late rediscovery profoundly transformed the history of abstraction, without reducing this painting to a simple race of priority with Kandinsky or Mondrian. The "Hilma af Klint" selection notably highlights regard Les Dix Plus Grands, n° 1, Childhood and Tree of Knowledge, n° 1. Its reading favors the atmosphere.

Hilma af Klint does not leave the visible to erase it: spirals, trees, cells and colors become an alphabet capable of connecting nature, consciousness and cosmos.