Hilma af Klint: Artist, Researcher, Medium

This volume casts Hilma af Klint as a pioneering cosmonaut of inner space with new scholarship. Hilma af Klint, a Swedish painter whose simultaneous fascination with art and spiritism led her to produce one of the most astonishing oeuvres in modern art history, was a relatively unknown artist for decades. However, she has recently claimed her rightful place in art history, with her 2019 exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum being seen by more than half a million visitors.

In 2013, curator Iris Muller-Westermann organized the first retrospective exhibition of af Klint's work, and now she presents us with an extensive survey show, curated with Milena Høgsberg, at the Moderna Museet in Malmö, which this volume accompanies. The volume supplements reproductions with the latest information and research on af Klint.

Hilma af Klint: Artist, Researcher, Medium investigates, from a variety of perspectives, the question of how this trailblazing abstract artist linked her painting to a higher consciousness. Essays by art historians, a quantum physicist, a spiritual teacher, and an historian of theosophy and esotericism, among others, provide insights into a world beyond the visible which fascinates us now even more than ever.

Af Klint's conventional landscape paintings and botanical illustrations served as her main source of income, but her true lifelong passion lay in the art she created as a result of otherworldly communication. Her private works not only demonstrate perhaps the first example of true abstraction in Western painting, but they also convey a complex, deeply felt system of spirituality that guided af Klint throughout her life and career.

This volume, with its extensive research and diverse perspectives, casts Hilma af Klint as a pioneering figure in the exploration of inner space, a visionary artist who pushed the boundaries of what was possible in both art and spirituality. The insights provided by the essays shed light on a world that continues to captivate and inspire us, and the reproductions offer a glimpse into the extraordinary artistic legacy of this remarkable woman.

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