Hilma Af Klint (1862–1944)

I got this book from the library, and I was fascinated by a glossary of invented terms that were translated from the Swedish, which is supposed to explain her artwork. The problem was this book did not actually include the notebooks that would’ve had the abbreviations that the glossary referred to. This library, copy book was a little bit old and the picture color seem faded, but it may be that some of those original artworks have been fitted due to her nephew storing some of her works under less than pristine conditions before she became famous as the first female, abstract painter, or possibly even the first abstract painter, either male or female.… (mais)

A three-volume slipcased facsimile of sketchbooks from Hilma af Klint and her Spiritualist circle

Hilma af Klint (1862–1944) was a pioneer of modern abstract art who turned away from the visible, physical world to embrace a spiritual reality in both her life and work. In 1896, together with Anna Cassel (1860–1937), Cornelia Cederberg (1854–1933), Sigrid Hedman (1855–1922) and Mathilda Nilsson (1844–1923), af Klint left the Edelweiss Society―a group which combined Christian concepts with ideas of Theosophy and Spiritualism―and established The Five. The all-female group, which met every Friday in Stockholm to practice group meditations and séances, believed they could channel mystic beings whom they called the High Masters, with names such as Amaliel, Ananda and Gregor. In trancelike states, the women transcribed the messages from these High Masters via automatic writings and drawings into a series of shared sketchbooks, resulting in a kaleidoscope of collective and raw work that is firmly rooted in the spiritual realm.
Over the course of the group’s existence, up until 1908, they filled 15 such sketchbooks, three of which have been reproduced in facsimile form for the first time and are presented in this sumptuous slipcased edition. The set includes sketchbook nos. 2, 6 and 13, dating from October 1896 to January 1906, and provides a rare look into the early influential years of af Klint’s artistic and spiritual practice.… (mais)

Once considered an outsider artist, after her show at the Guggenheim Museum was seen by more than half-a-mil-lion visitors, Hilma af Klint firmly established her place in art history. She has also been the subject of documenta-ry films and biographies. In 2013, Iris Müller-Westermann organized the first institutional exhibition of af Klint’s work. Now she presents us with the latest information and research in an extensive survey show at the Moderna Museet in Malmö. Of crucial importance is the issue of spirituality in af Klint’s painting―how she managed to translate both the material and the immaterial world into a pictorial vision. The accompanying exhibition catalogue is the first to investigate, from a variety of perspectives, the question of how this trailblazing abstract artist linked her painting to a higher consciousness. Essays by leading historians of theosophy and a quantum physicist, among others, provide enlightening insight into a world in which both the visualization of atoms and spiritual séances alike became artistic material―a world that fascinates us even more than ever.… (mais)