Retable, n° 1, 1915, huile et feuille d’or sur toile, 237,5 × 179,5 cm, HаK187 By courtesy of the Hilma af Klint Foundation / photo The Moderna Museet, Stockholm
At the very beginning of the 20th Century, a young woman, born in 1862 in an aristocratic Lutheran family in Sweden, became the pioneer of abstract art, decades before the men considered to be the fathers of this movement: Kazimir Malevitch, Piet Mondrian and, mostly, Wassily Kandinsky. But no one knew about this avant-garde artist because no one had seen her paintings. Her name was Hilma af Klint. She had 2 lives. In her public life, Hilma was a brilliant student at Stockholm’s Royal Academy of Beaux-Arts. She would become a successful painter in the traditional figurative paintings of the day: landscapes, flowers, etc. - Hilma af Klint was conforming to the taste of the public of early 20th Century Sweden. In her secret life, the artist was a revolutionary. Hilma had left clear instructions to her nephew whom she entrusted the paintings to - a total of 1,600: no one was to see her secret work until 20 years after her death. She believed that people at the time would not understand her work.
Hilma af Klint passed away in 1944, but it was only in 1986 - 42 years later - that the world discovered her extraordinary body of work in an exhibition at LACMA, in Los Angeles, titled “The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Paintings 1890 - 1985”. This unknown artist was featured alongside the stars of the art world - all men - like Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Jackson Pollock, Ellsworth Kelly and Jasper Jones, but when the New York Times reviewed the show, it mentioned Hilma af Klint in passing. Women artists, even someone who had opened the way for abstract painting years before the “great men”, continued to be mostly invisible.
Invisible no more. The Grand Palais, in Paris, is presenting the first major show of Hilma af Klint in France and it’s one of the most extraordinary exhibitions you’ll see in a very long time, so extravagant, so inspired, so radically original in the use of shapes and colors and esoteric signs. Since 2018 at the Guggenheim, no show of this scope has been shown. The Grand Palais exhibition presents Peintures du Temple, made between 1906 and 1915. This ensemble of paintings, essential to understanding the history of modern art, is made up of a succession of 10 series mixing representations, symbols, geometric shapes. Hilma af Klint was exploring the line between the visible and the invisible, abstraction and figurative art with motifs associating modern science, geometry, decorative art, spirituality.
Les Dix plus grands, n° 4 (Jeunesse), 1907, tempera sur papier contrecollé sur toile, 315 ×234 cm, HaK105 By courtesy of the Hilma af Klint Foundation / photo The Moderna Museet, Stockholm
Les Dix plus grands, n° 5 (Âge adulte), 1907, tempera sur papier contrecollé sur toile, 321 × 237 cm, HaK106 By courtesy of the Hilma af Klint Foundation / photo The Moderna Museet, Stockholm
How did these Peintures du Temple happen ? What was the trigger ? In 1906, Hilma af Klint, who was working with 4 other women artists called De Fem (The Five) experienced 2 profound events. First, the traumatic death of her 10 year old sister sent Hilma on a spiritual quest. Then, the 5 women friends, like many people at the time, had a keen interest in spiritualism. Participants would communicate with the “other world”, with deceased people, through a medium getting into a trance and sending messages to the living. De Fem met every Friday for sessions. In one of these, Hilma heard voices telling her what to paint. “The paintings come through me without any preparation, without any changes” she explained in her voluminous journal (16,000 pages). She started first drawing with color pencils, which was completely new at the time. Drawings were made with lead pencils. In its work, De Fem was looking for cosmic harmony and to tap into the invisible energies operating in our world. These artists painted with the help of these "spiritual guides”. They saw themselves as just conduits.
Les Dix plus grands, n° 1 (Enfance), 1907,tempera sur papier contrecollé sur toile, 322 × 239 cm, HaK102 By courtesy of the Hilma af Klint Foundation / photo The Moderna Museet, Stockholm
Hilma was also a follower of Austrian philosopher Rudolph Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy, a philosophy trying to create a new spiritual path. The interest of Hilma and the De Fem group for this spiritual search and experiences - just like Kandinsky or Mondrian - sprung from their desire to combat the loss of enchantment in the world brought by industrial capitalism. Hilma’s paintings associate symbols, geometric figures and shapes. They also are using color as a way to depict emotions: red is for desire, yellow for intellectual focus, blue for spiritual aspiration.
Colombe, n° 2, 1915, huile sur toile, 155,5 × 115,5 cm, НHaK174 By courtesy of the Hilma af Klint Foundation / photo The Moderna Museet, Stockholm
The Grand Palais exhibition features a suite of works called The 10 Largest, a series of monumental paintings over 3 meters high. Here again, Hilma af Klint was a pioneer. Decades before Jackson Pollock, she laid the canvas on the floor to paint this series of extraordinary shapes and colors, almost “psychedelic”, depicting the different stages of life.
Hilma af Klint’s Les Peintures du Temple is an extraordinary voyage through the mind of a remarkable human and artist. Looking at the paintings, letting the eye travel, is a deeply hypnotic experience. Through these works, we communicate with Hilma through time. She would certainly have approved.
- Jean-Sébastien Stehli
Hilma af Klint, Les Peintures du Temple (1906 - 1915). Grand Palais, Galerie 8. Until August 30, 2026). grandpalais.fr
