A highly anticipated biography of the enigmatic and popular Swedish
painter.
The Swedish painter Hilma af Klint (1862-1944) was forty-four years old
when she broke with the academic tradition in which she had been trained
to produce a body of radical, abstract works the likes of which had
never been seen before. Today, it is widely accepted that af Klint was
one of the earliest abstract academic painters in Europe.
But this is only part of her story. Not only was she a working female
artist, she was also an avowed clairvoyant and mystic. Like many of the
artists at the turn of the twentieth century who developed some version
of abstract painting, af Klint studied Theosophy, which holds that
science, art, and religion are all reflections of an underlying
life-form that can be harnessed through meditation, study, and
experimentation. Well before Kandinsky, Mondrian, and Malevich declared
themselves the inventors of abstraction, af Klint was working in a
nonrepresentational mode, producing a powerful visual language that
continues to speak to audiences today. The exhibition of her work in
2018 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City attracted more than
600,000 visitors, making it the most-attended show in the history of the
institution.
Despite her enormous popularity, there has not yet been a biography of
af Klint--until now. Inspired by her first encounter with the artist's
work in 2008, Julia Voss set out to learn Swedish and research af
Klint's life--not only who the artist was but what drove and inspired
her. The result is a fascinating biography of an artist who is as great
as she is enigmatic.
