Hilma af Klint – The Ten Greatest Young Age (1907)

Louisiana poster with the work, The Ten Greatest Young Age (1907), by the Swedish artist, Hilma af Klint (1862-1944), which Louisiana exhibited in 2014. Klint painted his "Tin støstø"—the original images are precisely physically large—in a period of only 40 days in the autumn of 1907. Klint never showed his abstract works in public during his lifetime, but only his figurative ones. "I had no idea what the pictures were supposed to represent. Still, I worked quickly and safely, without changing a single brushstroke," explained Hilma af Klint in her notes and diaries.

Hilma af Klint has not taken up much space in art history, although she can be listed as one of the pioneers of abstract art. Her extensive work is created in a spiritual space inspired by e.g. theosophical and anthroposophical currents, where she links inner experience and symbolic language.

The story of the artist is fascinating and unknown to most. It's a story about a female artist on the edge of the established canon. She belongs to the first generation of academy-educated women in Europe. She was educated in Stockholm in naturalistic portrait and landscape painting. Hilma af Klint's visual universe is visually strong, color-experimental and rich in symbols.