Hilma af Klint: The Art That Had to Wait Seventy Years

Few Swedish artists have received such late and profound recognition as Hilma af Klint. During her lifetime, she was known as a skilled but rather conventional painter of landscapes and portraits. She showed almost no one what she was really doing. In her studio, she built up an entire visual language of spirals, circles, letters, and pastel-colored forms that resembled nothing else being painted in Sweden around 1906.

Today, her works hang at the Guggenheim in New York, the Grand Palais in Paris, and in her own room at the Moderna Museet. The question asked repeatedly is simple: how could a woman in Stockholm paint abstract art several years before Kandinsky, Malevich, and Mondrian?

Let's delve into the subject.

Hilma af Klint in brief

• Born 1862 in Solna, died 1944 in Djursholm
• Educated at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm from 1882 to 1887, one of the first women
• Created "Paintings for the Temple" from 1906 to 1915, a series of 193 works
• Stipulated in her will that the abstract works should not be displayed until twenty years after her death
• Achieved international breakthrough with the exhibition at the Guggenheim from 2018 to 2019
• Since 2015, her works are free from copyright

Who was Hilma af Klint?

She grew up in a naval officer's family where maps, mathematics, and navigation were commonplace. Traces of this are easily seen in her later painting. Diagrams, coordinate systems, and precise geometric forms reappear throughout her abstract production.

After the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, she supported herself as a portrait painter and illustrator. Among other things, she drew for veterinary medical publications, which gave her an unusual precision in rendering nature. At the same time, she sought out other worlds. From 1896, she met regularly with four other women in the group De Fem (The Five). They held seances, kept meticulous notes, and together developed a kind of automatic drawing where the hand moved freely across the paper.

It was there, in their shared quest, that her new visual language began to take shape.

What are "Paintings for the Temple"?

In 1906, she began the work that would become her life's project. Over nine years, she painted 193 pictures that she saw as parts of a whole, intended for a temple that was never built. She described the work herself as a mission conveyed to her. How one interprets this is up to the viewer. What no one questions is the result.

Most famous are "The Ten Largest" from 1907. Ten tempera paintings on paper, each over three meters high, depicting the stages of human life from childhood to old age. The colors are bright and soft: peach pink, light blue, orange, and dull yellow. The forms are organic and almost playful. Spirals spin, flower-like figures open, letters and words appear in the compositions as clues.

The remarkable thing is how contemporary they feel. Place one of "The Ten Largest" next to a modern graphic poster, and it's the 1907 painting that looks most current.

What does her visual language look like?

Some recurring features can be recognized throughout her abstract production:

• The spiral and the shell, symbolizing development and evolution
• The circle, often divided into two halves, as a sign of duality and unity
• The letters U and W, which she used as symbols for the spiritual and the material
• The color pair blue and yellow, which for her represented the feminine and the masculine
• The swan and the dove, motifs that reappear in two of her most famous series from 1914 and 1915

The "Swan" series is particularly interesting. It begins figuratively, with two swans meeting in a reflection, and moves step by step towards pure geometric compositions. Along the way, the images become increasingly reduced until only circles, triangles, and color fields remain. It's like watching abstraction being born in real time.

The "Altarpieces" from 1915 are perhaps her most powerful works. A large triangle of colored fields pointing upwards towards a golden circle. Simply explained: a light spectrum that becomes a staircase to something greater.

Why did she hide her paintings?

There are several possible answers here, and the truth is probably a mixture. She knew that her contemporaries were not ready. When she showed parts of her work to Rudolf Steiner in 1908, she reportedly received a cool reception. She may also have felt that the works belonged to a spiritual context that did not yet exist.

In her will, she stipulated that the abstract works should not be displayed until twenty years after her death. Her nephew took responsibility for over a thousand paintings and tens of thousands of pages of notes. It would be 1986 before the images were publicly displayed, in an exhibition on spirituality in art in Los Angeles.

Why is Hilma af Klint so relevant right now?

The major turning point came in 2013 when the Moderna Museet showed "Abstract Pioneer." Five years later, "Paintings for the Future" at the Guggenheim in New York became the museum's most visited exhibition ever. Since then, the tour has continued to Tokyo, Sydney, Bilbao, Düsseldorf, and New York again. In the spring and summer of 2026, "Paintings for the Temple" was shown for the first time in France, at the Grand Palais in Paris, and in October, a solo exhibition opens in Dublin.

But the interest is not just about art history. Her images strike a chord in our own time. Three things stand out:

The color palette is close to what dominates interior design and graphic design right now. Muted pastels, warm earthy tones, and clear accents in blue and yellow.

The design language is both precise and organic. It suits a time that seeks to move away from both cold minimalism and overloaded maximalism.

And then there's the search for meaning. Her images are not decoration. They are attempts to understand the world. This is evident, even for those who do not share her spiritual starting point.

How does Hilma af Klint work in a home?

There's a reason her motifs have become so popular as art prints. They work in almost any kind of room, but in different ways.

Here's how you can think:

"The Ten Largest" have a bright and airy expression that works best in large format. A single image from the series can carry an entire wall in a living room or bedroom. The pink and orange tones enhance rooms with a lot of white and light wood.

"The Swan" and "The Dove" are more austere and graphic. They suit studies, hallways, and rooms with darker color schemes. Here, the contrast between the sharp forms and soft background tones comes into its own.

"The Altarpieces" have a weight and tranquility that make them suitable for places where one wants to settle down. Above a sofa, at the head of a bed, or in a reading nook.

Some concrete tips are to give the picture space. Hilma af Klint's compositions are carefully balanced and thrive best without clutter from other motifs around them. Choose a frame in a color that is already present in the image, or in light oak that highlights the warm tones without competing.

Her works also have a special advantage: they don't look like anything else. Anyone tired of abstract motifs that could have been painted by anyone will find here a visual language with a clear originator and a story behind every form.

Hilma af Klint on Fine Art paper

At Care of Posters, all art prints are produced with giclée technique in twelve colors on FSC-certified 200-gram Fine Art paper. For Hilma af Klint's motifs, this makes a difference. Her original paintings are made in tempera and oil with a matte, almost powdery surface, and the matte paper reproduces that feel better than glossy prints which can easily give pastels a plasticky sheen.

The paper is age-resistant, which feels fitting for an artist who herself thought a hundred years ahead. The motifs can be ordered in several sizes and with frames in oak, black ash, or white ash.

Hilma af Klint painted for a future she didn't believe she would experience. Now it's here. And it turns out that the images work just as well on a wall in Uppsala as in a temple that was never built.