About the Hilma Mural

Hilma af Klint (Swedish, 1862-1944) was a woman painter who produced the first abstract art in the Western world, a milestone previously credited to Wassily Kandinsky. She was a devotee of Theosophy, a fringe spiritual movement which attracted Kandinsky and other prominent Modernists. She also participated in spiritualism, a craze from the nineteenth century that centered around séances. She served as a medium for a group of woman artist friends known as the Five.

This mural is inspired by her Ten Largest series, a set of massive canvases which she began in 1907. Hilma primarily took inspiration from the spiritual world, and claimed that her art was dictated by outside forces. Although she had exhibitions in her lifetime, discouragement from an art teacher led her to instruct in her will that her artwork be hidden until twenty years after her death. Her name has become more prominent ever since the 1980s, and especially since the Guggenheim's 2018 exhibition Beyond the Visible. For more information, see "Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future," https://www.guggenheim.org/exhibition/hilma-af-klint, hilmaafklint.se, and "Hilma af Klint: A Painter Possessed," https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/feb/21/hilma-af-klint-occult-spiritualism-abstract-serpentine-gallery.