Relatively unknown in her lifetime - Swedish artist Hilma af Klint is now recognised as one of Western art’s first pioneers of abstract painting; with a great deal of her work actually predating the other “fathers of abstraction” like Piet Mondrian and Wassily Kandinsky.1
But not many people know that there were actually two sides of Hilma’s artistic practice - which we can loosely label as The Professional and The Mystic.
You see, for the vast majority of her life, Hilma was first and foremost a working artist.
She had clients to satisfy - commissions to fulfil - and so, for anyone who may have known about her work in the late 1800s to early 1900s - the style they would be most familiar with were these delicate little landscape scenes, which you can see above and below.
These were her main source of income.
And clearly they have a real charm about them too - capturing the Swedish landscape with such a serene feel, while stylistically being somewhere in the midpoint between early impressionism and more classical landscapes.
However, in her private practice, things could hardly have been more different.
Behind closed doors, Hilma herself was much more devoted to art as a branch of mysticism.
And unbeknownst to any of her more commercial buyers, the work she was producing here actually looked more like this . .
These were paintings that Hilma believed she was channelling - as if they were direct “commissions” from certain spiritual entities.
And the more she painted, the more she came to believe that she had made a truly profound discovery here . . . inventing a whole new kind of language for how to depict the nature of the soul.
(It is also quite possible she had synaesthesia, much like Kandinsky - and thus, felt that she could quite literally “hear the sound of colours”)
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But, of course, even when she so often felt in the midst of such spiritual rapture - Hilma was realistic too.
She knew that the art world of her time was still a long way from being ready to embrace such a wildly different new style of “abstraction”.
And though she was so very intentional in the way she painted - with even the seemingly spontaneous elements of her work being a result of careful consideration - still, she could not help feeling that no-one else would really understand this “new language” of hers.
So, as a result, Hilma kept her more visionary works a secret - often telling those closest to her that “the world was not quite ready for them”
And, in terms of her more public persona - she carried on just the same as she always had . . . working to general commissions and occasionally exhibiting her landscapes in fairly generic shows.
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By the time of her death at age 81, she is believed to have only ever made two or three attempts to ever show her abstract pieces publicly.
And rumour has it that in her last will - having left all her work to her nephew, the Swedish naval officer Erik af Klint - she also gave instructions for a certain selection of her paintings to be locked away in a box, under the express demands that they were not to be opened for at least 50 to 100 years - by which time, she hoped some future generations might finally be able to start appreciating them.
And to some extent - her prediction is starting to be proven right.
Following her death in 1944, Hilma’s work slowly gained a bit of traction. But really, it has only been in the last 20 years or so that her worldwide renown, and recognition as an early abstract pioneer, has started to really grow.
Although, we must add that there is still no word yet of what ever happened to that last hidden box of her paintings.
So, who knows . . . maybe in the course of the next 20 years, we will see even more of her work come to light again.
Or find that, up until now, we have really only ever been scratching the surface of Hilma’s true impact as an artist!
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(Note: On Hilma’s connection to Kandinsky and Mondrian. There is no record of either men actually knowing about Hilma’s work, or visa versa . . . so their ideas are very much independent of one another. However, in a strange quirk of fate, all three artists died in 1944. So, in that case, perhaps their spiritual lives really were much more interlinked than they even realised!)
We all have to make a living. Right?
Still, I've never seen such a contrast between an artist's commercial work and passion project work than this. Can't wait to see the contents of that final box unsealed.
Transcendent is the word that come to mind, just fascinating. I will be researching her for even more insights. Thanks for this enlightening article