For most of the twentieth century, the story of abstract art started with Kandinsky, Mondrian and Malevich. Then the paintings of a Swedish woman who had died in 1944 started to be shown, and the dates did not fit. Hilma af Klint had been painting large, fully abstract works years before any of them — and had chosen to keep them hidden.
Who she was
Hilma af Klint (1862–1944) trained at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm and made a respectable living painting landscapes and portraits. In parallel, she and four other women met regularly for spiritualist séances, and out of that work came something else entirely. Between 1906 and 1915 she painted The Paintings for the Temple, a series of 193 works of spirals, circles, petals, letters and symmetrical diagrams in colours no one else was using.
The best known of them is The Ten Largest from 1907: ten canvases over three metres tall that follow a human life from childhood through youth and adulthood to old age. Their pinks, oranges, lilacs and blues look strikingly contemporary, which is part of why the prints sell today.
She left instructions that the abstract work should not be shown until twenty years after her death. It took far longer than that. International recognition came in stages — a group show in Los Angeles in 1986, a large retrospective at Moderna Museet in Stockholm in 2013, and then the Guggenheim in New York in 2018–19, which became the most visited exhibition in that museum's history.
She died in 1944, so her work entered the public domain in the EU at the start of 2015. Faithful reproductions of her paintings are therefore free to print, and our Hilma af Klint collection holds both her paintings and new work they have inspired.
Green Hilma No. 2 - Tara Green
Green Hilma - Tara Green
Hilma af Klint - The Ten Largest, Adulthood, No. 7
Hilma af Klint - Youth No. 3
Hilma No 02 - Tara Green
Hilma af Klint - Abstract Flowers
Originals and reinterpretations
The collection holds two kinds of print. The first is the paintings themselves, such as Adulthood, No. 7 from The Ten Largest. The second is new work by living artists who take her forms as a starting point — most visibly the Hilma series by Tara Green, which strips the compositions back to a few shapes and a softer palette. Green Hilma No. 2 is currently one of the best-selling prints in the whole shop.
Which one to choose depends on the room. The originals are dense and full of detail, and reward a place where you stop and look — a living room wall, a study. The reinterpretations are calmer and work as a colour accent in a bedroom or a Scandinavian living room.
Sizes
| Type | Best sizes | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| The Ten Largest | 50×70, 70×100 | Painted huge; detail needs area |
| Smaller temple works and diagrams | 30×42, 50×70 | Graphic, readable at a smaller size |
| Contemporary reinterpretations | 30×42 to 70×100 | Simple forms scale well in both directions |
Frames and colour
Oak is the natural choice. Af Klint's palette is warm and slightly chalky, and pale wood keeps it soft. A thin white frame suits the pink and lilac works in a light room. Black works but hardens the prints; save it for the darker blue and green pieces. If you want a coloured frame, pick one of the print's own background tones — a pink print in a pink frame can look very deliberate. All finishes are in the frame range.
Pairing
Her circles and spirals sit comfortably next to other early abstraction. A pair with a Paul Klee or one of the Kandinsky exhibition posters tells a coherent story. In a gallery wall, use one af Klint as the anchor and build around it with botanical prints in matching colours — she made careful botanical studies throughout her life, and the petal forms answer each other. The botanical guide has suggestions.