At the turn of the twentieth century, Swedish artist Hilma af Klint (1862–1944) created a body of work that left visible reality behind, exploring the radical possibilities of abstraction years before Vasily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, or Piet Mondrian. Many consider her the first trained artist to create abstract paintings. With Hilma af Klint: Notes and Methods, we get to experience the arc of Klint’s artistic investigation in her own words. Hilma af Klint studied at the Royal Swedish Academy in Stockholm where she was part of the first generation of female students. Up until the beginning of the century, she painted mainly landscapes and detailed botanical studies. Her work from this period was that of a young artist of her time who meticulously observed the world around her. But, like many of her contemporaries, af Klint was also interested in the invisible relationships that shape our world, believing strongly in a spiritual dimension. She joined the Theosophical Society, and, with four fellow female members who together called themselves “The Five,” began to study mediumship. Between 1906 and 1915, purportedly guided by a higher power, af Klint created 193 individual works that, in both scale and scope of imagery, are like no other art created at that time. Botanically inspired images and mystical symbols, diagrams, words and geometric series, all form part af Klint’s abstract language. These abstract techniques would not be seen again until years later. Notes and Methods presents facsimile reproductions of a wide array of af Klint’s early notebooks accompanied by the first English translation of af Klint’s extensive writings. It contains the rarely seen “Blue Notebooks,” hand-painted and annotated catalogues af Klint created of her most famous series “Paintings for the Temple,” and a dictionary compiled by af Klint of the words and letters found in her work. An introduction by Iris Müller-Westermann illuminates this unique and important contribution to the legacy of Hilma af Klint.

Fran att tidigare ha betraktats som en konstnarernas konstnar har Hilma af Klint (1862 - 1944), efter den foersta retrospektiva utstallningen pa Moderna Museet i Stockholm 2013 och den foeljande utstallningsturnen som sags av en miljonpublik, numera en etablerad plats i den abstrakta konstens historia. Centralt i hennes maleri ar aven fragan om andlighet. Hilma af Klint var en klassiskt skolad konstnar och ett medium som foervandlade andliga meddelanden till abstrakta och fargrika bilder. Ur en rad perspektiv undersoeks i den har katalogen hur denna banbrytande abstrakta konstnar kopplade sin konstnarliga praktik till ett hoegre medvetande. I essaer av konsthistoriker, en kvantfysiker, en larare i andlighet, en historiker i teosofi och esoterism, men flera, ges insikter om en varld bortom det synliga som fascinerar, nu kanske mer an nagonsin. Katalogen har producerats i samband med utstallningen med samma namn pa Moderna Museet i Malmoe, sommaren 2020. Once considered an outsider artist, after her show at the Guggenheim Museum was seen by more than half-a-mil-lion visitors, Hilma af Klint firmly established her place in art history. She has also been the subject of documenta-ry films and biographies. In 2013, Iris Muller-Westermann organized the first institutional exhibition of af Klint's work. Now she presents us with the latest information and research in an extensive survey show at the Moder-na Museet in Malmoe. Of crucial importance is the issue of spirituality in af Klint's painting-how she managed to translate both the material and the immaterial world into a pictorial vision. The accompanying exhibition catalogue is the first to investigate, from a variety of perspectives, the question of how this trailblazing abstract artist linked her painting to a higher consciousness. Essays by leading historians of theosophy and a quantum physicist, among others, provide enlightening insight into a world in which both the visualization of atoms and spiritual seances alike became artistic material-a world that fascinates us even more than ever.