A highly anticipated biography of the enigmatic and popular Swedish painter.
The Swedish painter Hilma af Klint (1862–1944) was 44 years old when she broke with the academic tradition in which she had been trained. While her naturalistic landscapes and botanicals were shown during her lifetime, her body of radical, abstract works never received the same attention. Today, it is widely accepted that af Klint produced the earliest abstract paintings by a trained European artist. But this is only part of her story. Not only was she a successful woman artist, but she was also an avowed clairvoyant and mystic. Like many of the artists at the turn of the twentieth century who developed some version of abstract painting, af Klint studied Theosophy, which holds that science, art, and religion are all reflections of an underlying life-form that can be harnessed through meditation, study, and experimentation. Well before Kandinsky, Mondrian and Malevich declared themselves the inventors of abstraction, af Klint was working in a non-representational mode, producing a powerful visual language that continues to speak to audiences today. The exhibition of her work in 2018 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City attracted more than 600,000 visitors, making it the most-attended show in the history of the museum/institution.
Despite her enormous popularity, there has not yet been a biography of af Klint—until now. Inspired by her first encounter with the artist’s work in 2008, Julia Voss set out to learn Swedish and research af Klint’s life—not only who the artist was but what drove and inspired her. The result is a fascinating biography of an artist who is as great as she is enigmatic.
By:
Julia Voss
Translated by:
Anne Posten
Imprint: Chicago University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Edition: 1
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9780226689760
ISBN 10: 022668976X
Pages: 448
Publication Date: 27 December 2022
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
A Note from the Translator Chronology Introduction Part I. Family, Childhood, and Youth in Stockholm 1. Mary Wollstonecraft Visits Sweden and Is Upset 2. Birth 3. School and Religion 4. An Exhibition in London 5. Bertha Valerius and the Dead 6. Kerstin Cardon’s Painting School 7. Hermina’s Death Part II. Study at the Academy and Independent Work 1. The Academy 2. Guardian Spirit 3. The Prize 4. Anna Cassel 5. “My First Experience with Mediumship” 6. The Young Artist 7. Dr. Helleday and Love 8. The Five 9. Art from the Orient 10. Rose and Cross 11. At the Veterinary Institute 12. Children’s Books and Decorative Art 13. Italy 14. Genius Part III. Paintings for the Temple 1. Old Images 2. Revolution 3. Primordial Chaos 4. Eros 5. Medium 6. The Ten Largest 7. “I Was the Instrument of Ecstasy” 8. Rudolf Steiner Visits Sweden 9. The Young Ones 10. Sigrid Lancén 11. The Association of Swedish Women Artists 12. Frank Heyman 13. Island Kingdom in Mälaren 14. First Exhibition with the Theosophists 15. Tree of Knowledge 16. The Kiss 17. Singoalla 18. The Baltic Exhibition 19. War 20. Saint George 21. Kandinsky in Stockholm 22. Parsifal and Atom 23. The Studio on Munsö 24. Thomasine Anderson Part IV. Dornach, Amsterdam, and London 1. The Suitcase Museum 2. Flowers, Mosses, and Lichens 3. First Visit to the Goetheanum 4. “Belongs to the Astral World According to Doctor Steiner” 5. The Fire and the Letter 6. Amsterdam 7. London Part V. Temple and Later Years 1. The Temple and the Spiral 2. +x 3. A Temple in New York 4. The London Blitz 5. Future Woman 6. National Socialism 7. Lecture in Stockholm 8. “Degenerate” Art in Germany and Abstract Art in New York 9. Tyra Kleen and the Plan for a Museum 10 Last Months 11. Conclusion Afterword by Johan af Klint Afterword by Ulrika af Klint Appendix 1. Hilma af Klint’s Travels and Places of Residence Appendix 2. The Library of Hilma af Klint Acknowledgments Illustration Sources Notes Bibliography Index
Julia Voss is a German journalist and an art critic for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Anne Posten is a literary translator based in Berlin.
Reviews for Hilma af Klint: A Biography
Julia Voss's dazzling and timely biography of Hilma af Klint explores not only the life of this extraordinary artist but highlights the important contributions of both mysticism and women artists-so long excluded from the art-historical canon-to the story of modern art. I couldn't put it down. -- Jennifer Higgie Julia Voss's biography is the indispensable resource for anyone interested in pioneering artist Hilma af Klint. With her thousands of pages of notebooks in Swedish, af Klint remained beyond the reach of scholars without the ability to read Swedish. By mastering Swedish and doing superb archival research on af Klint and the women around her, Voss reveals a Hilma we did not know, including a gender fluidity that underlies many of her motifs. Voss has also recovered the cosmopolitan culture of Stockholm in this period-from art exhibitions and science expositions to the robust interest in spiritualism that parallels that in Berlin. Written in lively prose, Voss's book is a pleasure to read in the translation by Anne Posten. -- Linda Henderson, University of Texas at Austin A fascinating book on the exhilarating life and work of Hilma af Klint. Julia Voss has been instrumental in bringing her story to the forefront and tells her life with such sensitivity, generosity and insight. A must read! -- Katy Hessel
