The Swedish artist Hilma af Klint (1862–1944) is an intriguing figure of modernism not only because of her body of work: During her lifetime, she exhibited only a few works publicly; she presented her now-famous abstract works only occasionally, in the company of spiritually like-minded individuals and during séances. In her will, she stipulated that her work could not be shown publicly for 20 years after her death. Thus, the world did not become acquainted with her work until 1986, in the exhibition The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890–1985 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She is now regarded as a major artistic force of the modern era. Years before abstract compositions caused a sensation and contributed to the fame of many artists such as Kandinsky and Mondrian, af Klint created her Spiritualism-influenced abstractions. In a joint exhibition organized by the Grand Palais and the Centre Pompidou, many of the artist’s works are now on view in France for the first time, including her magnum opus, the Temple Paintings cycle (1906–1915), and the monumental series The Ten Greatest (1907). Hilma af Klint, curated by Pascal Rosseau, runs from May 6 to August 30 at the Grand Palais in Paris.
Hilma af Klint is regarded as a pioneer of abstract painting and an outstanding painter of the early 20th century. Beginning in 1917, af Klint embarked on a new form of self-study, as the previous direction of her art no longer satisfied her. She devoted herself to studies of nature, which she combined with elements of her spiritual, abstract painting, thereby also depicting the spiritual forces of plants. The artist was convinced that the study of nature paved the way to an understanding of the human being. Af Klint was featured in the acclaimed 2021 exhibition Women in Abstraction. Another History of Abstraction in the 20th Century at the Centre Pompidou, which subsequently traveled to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and the West Bund Museum in Shanghai.
