CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 5/8/2025

The exquisitely rendered botanical watercolors of Hilma af Klint, published for the first time

Featured image is reproduced from new release Hilma af Klint: What Stands Behind the Flowers. Collecting a rare portfolio of exquisitely rendered botanical watercolors made during spring and summer of 1919 and 1920—just a few years after she completed her secret, groundbreaking Paintings for the Temple series that would, a century later, take the world by storm—this gorgeous, 272-page hardcover accompanies the first public exhibition of this body of work. “There are no obstacles to man’s ascent if he is capable of controlling his thinking,” Af Klint wrote in the essay, An Attempt to Explain What Stands Behind the Flowers, “directing his thoughts to the realm of light, overcoming the body’s resistance with his thought. When we turn our gaze toward the plant kingdom, it gives us information about the composition of our own being.”

ABOVE: Sheet 9. Fragaria vesca (Woodland Strawberry), Oxalis acetosella (European Wood Sorrel), Antennaria dioica (Catsfoot), Taraxacum officinale (Common Dandelion). June 2–3, 1919, and May 24–25, 1920.