Hilma
af Klint

Hilma af Klint (Swede. Hilma af klint; October 26, 1862, Karlberg, Solna - October 21, 1944, Danderyud) - Swedish artist who worked in the genre of abstract painting.

Features of the artist: Paintings by Hilma af Klint represent vivid examples of radical abstractionism as an innovative direction in painting. These are bold and colorful canvases without any binding to anything recognizable in this world. Pictures are full of oscillating abstract, biomorphic or geometric shapes, fractal patterns, symbols, scrawled text. And at the same time they are perfectly balanced both in individual compositions and in the general structure, they are symbolic and metaphorical in color solutions. The artist's work includes both large-scale and small-sized canvases; with both maximalist and minimalist approach to composition and color.

Famous paintings: Series "Ten most important." Youth; Series "Swan" №17; Series “Altar” №1; Series “Primordial chaos” №7.

Hilma af Klint was born in the family of a naval officer-cartographer, becoming the fourth of five children. Since childhood, the girl showed a delicate feeling and understanding of nature, associative creative thinking, an interest in mathematics. She received a secondary education at the Technical School, painted landscapes, portrait and genre canvases. At 20, she became one of the first women to be accepted into the Royal Academy of Fine Arts.
In 1880, after the death of the younger sister, the main thing for Hilma was a spiritual search. The study of various philosophical and religious trends, prayers, meditations, seances, automatic writing - all this found expression in the transition from figurative to abstract painting.
The artist considered her paintings both as a unique product and as a way to expand consciousness. She was convinced that contemporaries are not ready to understand them, and did not seek to exhibit their esoteric and abstract works during their lifetime.
Hilma af Klint died as a result of a car accident in 1944, a few days before her 82nd birthday. After herself, she left 150 notebooks with notes of her thoughts and studies of her many years of trying to understand the mystery of the contact that came to her through her work. Her artistic heritage consists of more than 1,300 non-figurative paintings that have never been shown to outsiders, and more than 125 drawing albums. In her testament, Hilma af Klint indicated that the work of her life must be kept secret for at least 20 years after her death. Her last wish was also that the collection was never shared.
For the first time, the abstract art of Hilma af Klint was presented to the general public only in 1986 in the United States at the exhibition “Spirituality in Art. Abstract painting 1890-1985 ", which was the beginning of the international recognition of the creativity of the Swedish artist.

The author: Victoria Volkova