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PUBLISHER
Koenig Books

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 8 x 10 in. / 192 pgs / 155 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date
Out of stock indefinitely

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: FALL 2016 p. 42   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9783863358945 TRADE
List Price: $39.95 CAD $53.95

AVAILABILITY
Not available

TERRITORY
NA LA ASIA AU/NZ AFR

THE FALL 2024 ARTBOOK | D.A.P. CATALOG

Artbook | D.A.P. Catalog Cover Link
Preview our FALL 2024 catalog, featuring more than 500 new books on art, photography, design, architecture, film, music and visual culture.
  

KOENIG BOOKS

Hilma af Klint: Painting the Unseen

Foreword by Julia Peyton-Jones, Hans Ulrich Obrist. Text by Daniel Birnbaum, Jennifer Higgie, Julia Voss.

Hilma af Klint: Painting the Unseen

Working before Kandinsky and Malevich, Hilma af Klint was arguably the first abstract painter

Hilma af Klint graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm in 1887, established a studio in the city, and began creating and exhibiting traditional landscapes, botanical drawings and portraits. Privately, however, af Klint was already beginning to discard what she had learned at the Academy in favor of painting the invisible worlds hidden within nature, the spiritual realm and the occult.

As early as 1906, af Klint was working with abstract imagery--giving her a lead of several years in the modernist race to be the first to discover abstraction. She joined a group of four other female artists, “The Five,” which held séances and experimented with automatic writing and drawing--decades before the Surrealists would do something similar.

In 1905, af Klint received a “commission” from the mysterious entity Amaliel to create her most important body of work: The Paintings for the Temple. Hilma af Klint: Painting the Unseen focuses on this important series, consisting of 193 predominately abstract paintings in various series and subgroups. Claiming to act as merely a medium for spiritual forces guiding her hand, af Klint painted a path towards a harmony between the spiritual and material worlds; good and evil; man and woman; religion and science.

Swedish painter Hilma af Klint (1862–1944) is now regarded as a pioneer of abstract art. Though her paintings were not seen publicly until 1987, her work from the early 20th century predates the first purely abstract paintings by Kandinsky, Mondrian and Malevich.


Featured image is reproduced from Hilma af Klint: Painting the Unseen.

PRAISE AND REVIEWS

Bookforum

Albert Mobilio

Her abstraction is infused with an airy (and very contemporary) playfulness.

Hilma af Klint: Painting the Unseen

STATUS: Out of stock indefinitely.

FROM THE ARTBOOK BLOG

CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 9/1/2016

Hilma af Klint: Painting the Unseen

Hilma af Klint: Painting the Unseen

Before Kandinsky, before Mondrian and before Malevich, there was Hilma af Klint. By day, she painted tame academic portraits and Swedish landscapes in her Stockholm studio. By night, she studied the occult, conducted séances and painted the ravishing, almost psychedelic abstract paintings that, by design, would not be celebrated until decades after her death. Pictured here is her monumental 1915 painting, "Altarpiece, No. 1, Group X" which stands almost eight feet tall, and is reproduced from Hilma af Klint: Painting the Unseen, published to accompany the Serpentine Galleries' acclaimed recent exhibition. continue to blog


FROM THE ARTBOOK BLOG

CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 9/2/2016

Hilma af Klint: Painting the Unseen

Hilma af Klint: Painting the Unseen, Adulthood, Ten Largest Series

Clandestine early twentieth-century Swedish mystical painter Hilma af Klint's "No. 7, Adulthood, Group IV" (1907), from the Ten Largest series, was never exhibited in the artist's lifetime. Produced in secret under instructions “dictated” by a spirit named Amaliel whom af Klint contacted during séances with a group of five likeminded women artists, it was among the many dozens of paintings that the artist stipulated should not be shown until twenty years after her death—which transpired in 1944. Today, many consider af Klint the first true abstract painter—ahead of Kandinsky, Malevich and Mondrian. But for the half-century before her work was brought to light (RH Quaytman showed her work at PS1 in 1989), af Klint was a voluntary outsider who knew the world was "not ready" for her radical ideas. continue to blog


HILMA AF KLINT MONOGRAPHS + ARTIST'S BOOKS

Hilma af Klint and The Five’s Sketchbooks

HILMA AF KLINT AND THE FIVE’S SKETCHBOOKS

Bokförlaget Stolpe

ISBN: 9789189425415
USD $35.00
| CAD $47

Pub Date: 4/5/2022
Active | In stock


The Mission and Message of Hilma af Klint

THE MISSION AND MESSAGE OF HILMA AF KLINT

Bokförlaget Stolpe

ISBN: 9789189069961
USD $35.00
| CAD $47

Pub Date: 6/24/2025
Forthcoming


Hilma af Klint: Occult Painter and Abstract Pioneer

HILMA AF KLINT: OCCULT PAINTER AND ABSTRACT PIONEER

Bokförlaget Stolpe

ISBN: 9789189069473
USD $45.00
| CAD $61

Pub Date: 5/4/2021
Active | In stock


Hilma af Klint: Artist, Researcher, Medium

HILMA AF KLINT: ARTIST, RESEARCHER, MEDIUM

Hatje Cantz

ISBN: 9783775747400
USD $55.00
| CAD $77

Pub Date: 6/16/2020
Active | In stock


Hilma af Klint: The Paintings for the Temple 1906–1915

HILMA AF KLINT: THE PAINTINGS FOR THE TEMPLE 1906–1915

Bokförlaget Stolpe

ISBN: 9789189069114
USD $50.00
| CAD $70

Pub Date: 2/2/2021
Active | In stock


Hilma af Klint: Seeing Is Believing

HILMA AF KLINT: SEEING IS BELIEVING

Bokförlaget Stolpe

ISBN: 9789189069183
USD $35.00
| CAD $49

Pub Date: 11/24/2020
Active | In stock


Hilma af Klint: The Art of Seeing the Invisible

HILMA AF KLINT: THE ART OF SEEING THE INVISIBLE

Bokförlaget Stolpe

ISBN: 9789189069176
USD $45.00
| CAD $63

Pub Date: 2/23/2021
Active | In stock


Hilma af Klint: The Blue Books

HILMA AF KLINT: THE BLUE BOOKS

Bokförlaget Stolpe

ISBN: 9789189069244
USD $50.00
| CAD $70

Pub Date: 2/9/2021
Active | In stock


Hilma af Klint: Spiritualistic Drawings 1896–1905

HILMA AF KLINT: SPIRITUALISTIC DRAWINGS 1896–1905

Bokförlaget Stolpe

ISBN: 9789189069237
USD $50.00
| CAD $70

Pub Date: 3/9/2021
Active | In stock


Hilma af Klint: Parsifal and the Atom 1916–1917

HILMA AF KLINT: PARSIFAL AND THE ATOM 1916–1917

Bokförlaget Stolpe

ISBN: 9789189069251
USD $50.00
| CAD $70

Pub Date: 8/10/2021
Active | In stock


Hilma af Klint: Geometric Series and Other Works 1917–1920

HILMA AF KLINT: GEOMETRIC SERIES AND OTHER WORKS 1917–1920

Bokförlaget Stolpe

ISBN: 9789189069268
USD $45.00
| CAD $63

Pub Date: 2/8/2022
Active | In stock


Hilma af Klint: Late Watercolours 1922–1941

HILMA AF KLINT: LATE WATERCOLOURS 1922–1941

Bokförlaget Stolpe

ISBN: 9789189069275
USD $50.00
| CAD $70

Pub Date: 9/28/2021
Active | In stock


Hilma af Klint: Landscapes, Portraits and Miscellaneous Works 1886–1940

HILMA AF KLINT: LANDSCAPES, PORTRAITS AND MISCELLANEOUS WORKS 1886–1940

Bokförlaget Stolpe

ISBN: 9789189069282
USD $45.00
| CAD $63

Pub Date: 11/1/2022
Active | In stock


Hilma af Klint: The Complete Catalogue Raisonné

HILMA AF KLINT: THE COMPLETE CATALOGUE RAISONNé

Bokförlaget Stolpe

ISBN: 9789198523669
USD $350.00
| CAD $490

Pub Date: 5/2/2023
Active | In stock


Hilma af Klint Blue Notebook

HILMA AF KLINT BLUE NOTEBOOK

Bokförlaget Stolpe

ISBN: 9789189069213
USD $24.95
| CAD $34.95

Pub Date: 2/11/2020
Active | In stock


Hilma af Klint Orange Notebook

HILMA AF KLINT ORANGE NOTEBOOK

Bokförlaget Stolpe

ISBN: 9789189069220
USD $24.95
| CAD $34.95

Pub Date: 2/11/2020
Active | In stock