HILMA AF KLINT

Hilma af Klint was a Swedish artist who was involved in the fashionable spiritism movement at the end of the 19th century. Hilma had interest in the works of Madame Blavatsky, Rudolph Steiner and Christian Rosencreutz. At the Academy of Fine Arts she, and four other artists who shared interests in Theosophy and the paranormal, regularly held seances and created a new system of mysticism in the form of messages from entities known as The High Masters.

It was these High Masters that requested Hilma to create paintings for ‘The Temple’ - although she never quite understood what the Temple referred to. These works were the first abstract art that Hilma ever created, at the age of 44, and differed greatly from her previous style. The collection contained 193 paintings, created between 1906 and 1915. The works are embedded with symbology, letters and words, and Hilma felt she was directed by forces that guided her hand. When the works were completed, the spiritual guidance ended.