Julia Voss on the life and art of Hilma af Klint

On Thursday 18th May, we invite you to a free online event with scholar Julia Voss for a presentation on her new biography of Hilma af Klint published by University of Chicago Press.

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,…