Hilma af Klint: What Stands Behind the Flowers

Hilma af Klint: What Stands Behind the Flowers presents the 46 sheets of the artist’s Nature Studies portfolio, made during the spring and summer of 1919 and 1920 as she observed and drew flowers in forests and fields. Recently acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the pencil and jewel-toned watercolor studies pair carefully rendered plants with abstract diagrams: a sunflower with nested circles, lily of the valley with a colorful checkerboard, and catsfoot with mirrored spirals. Together, these forms express af Klint’s belief that close observation of nature could reveal “what stands behind the flowers,” including aspects of human character.

Published in conjunction with the portfolio’s first public exhibition, the book reproduces the drawings alongside contextual artworks and translations of af Klint’s previously unpublished writings. An overview essay by curator Jodi Hauptman examines the portfolio and its creation; texts by Ewa Lajer-Burcharth, Laura Neufeld, and Lena Struwe explore its imagery, materials, and botanical knowledge.

ARTIST: Hilma af Klint

ESSAYS: Jodi Hauptman, Ewa Lajer-Burcharth, Laura Neufeld, and Lena Struwe

ABOUT THE ARTIST: Hilma af Klint (1862–1944) trained at Stockholm’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts and established herself as a professional artist. In the first decade of the twentieth century, she developed an abstract vocabulary informed by spiritual investigation and her attention to the natural world.