01/09/2026
The first time most people heard the name Hilma af Klint was in 1986, when the Los Angeles County Museum of Art included her work in an exhibition titled The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890-1985. The mission of this ambitious show was to investigate the mystical, spiritual and occultist movements that emerged in western society around the end of the 19th Century, and to elucidate their influence on the evolution of abstract art. The show was divided in two parts. One explored themes, such as Cosmic Imagery, Synesthesia, and Sacred Geometry, as examined through the work of many different artists. The other dealt with the work of five specific artists considered by the curators to have been pioneers of spiritual abstract painting.
The first four pioneers were well-known artists: Wassily Kandinsky, František Kupka, Kazimir Malevich and Piet Mondrian; revered giants considered by almost everyone to be the inventors of modern abstraction.
But the fifth was a total unknown—a new discovery: Hilma af Klint. A Swedish mystic and medium, Klint had evidently developed her seemingly abstract visual language years before the others, at least as early as 1906. Not only that, but she had apparently done it in total isolation from the social and professional circles connected with early Modernist art.
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