Hilma af Klint is now regarded as a pioneer of abstract art. Her work from the early 20th century predates the first purely abstract paintings by Kandinsky, Mondrian and Malevich. Now, for the first time, af Klint's works, some 1,600 in all, have been collected in a Catalogue Raisonné. Af Klint's work should be seen and appreciated in the series of paintings often depicting specific themes and this ground-breaking publication, divided into seven volumes, allows for this. Volume VI focuses on the time after her mother's death in 1920 when Hilma af Klint gave up her geometrical works and began to paint with watercolours, as in the series On the Viewing of Flowers and Trees, from 1922.
Produced with the permission of the Hilma af Klint Foundation and featuring introductions by Daniel Birnbaum and Kurt Almqvist, a separate slip cased edition containing all seven volumes will be available in autumn 2021.
In the 1920s, Hilma af Klint spent extended periods in Dornach, Switzerland, where Rudolf Steiner had established an international centre for the anthroposophical movement - the Goetheanum.
At the Goetheanum, af Klint took part in the centre's rich cultural life. Among other things, she studied Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's theory of colours. In 1922, at the age of 60, she completely abandoned her geometrical way of working for the 'wet on wet' watercolour method inspired by anthroposophy, and developed by Steiner and his circle. An example of this is her series On the Viewing of Flowers and Trees from 1922. Most of the series presented in this, the sixth volume of Hilma af Klint's Catalogue Raisonné, have no titles.