Hilma af Klint: The Complete Catalogue Raisonné: Volumes I-VII

Discover the extraordinary life’s work of Swedish abstract pioneer Hilma af Klint, in this beautifully bound catalogue raisonné. The catalogue consists of seven volumes containing a total of nearly 1,600 works.  

The first volume, Spiritualistic Drawings 1896-1905, presents the fifteen sketchbooks produced by the group of artists known as The Five, which included af Klint. This period was an important starting point for her abstract painting and would later lead to her most important series – The Paintings for the Temple. The second volume comprises these paintings, a total of 193 works, including the iconic The Ten Largest.  

The third volume presents the ten blue books, these were small copies of The Paintings for the Temple, allowing af Klint to present her works to people when she travelled. According to af Klint’s own notes, these books were not intended to be studied until 20 years after her death.  

The fourth volume, Parsifal and the Atom 1916–1917, shows the two series Parsifal and The Atom. The Parsifal series was inspired by the legend of King Arthur and has been interpreted as an investigation of inner realms, while The Atom is supposedly an exploration of the spiritual structure of the universe.

At the end of the 1910s, Hilma af Klint created a number of series of small paintings in which abstract imagery is explored using a ruler and compass. These are shown in the volume Geometric Series and Other Works 1917–1920. In 1922, at the age of 60, Hilma af Klint completely abandoned her geometric approach for watercolours inspired by the Anthroposophical movement. The works from this period are presented in the sixth volume, Late Watercolours 1922–1941. And in the seventh and final volume, Landscapes, Portraits and Miscellaneous Works 1886–1940, we come to know af Klint as a painter of landscapes, portraits and botanical subjects.  

Daniel Birnbaum, co-editor with Kurt Almqvist, notes that af Klint’s works are highly interconnected and the catalogue raisonné is necessary in order to see the different cycles, motifs and symbols that recur in a fascinating way. Birnbaum suggests that to truly understand how Hilma af Klint's works functions, we need these books.  

Kurt Almqvist is the President of Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit.    

Daniel Birnbaum is a Swedish art critic, the artistic director of Acute Art in London and former director of the Moderna Museet, Stockholm  

Please be advised that this item is heavy, weighing approximately 17KG.     

About the artist  

Hilma af Klint (1862 – 1944) was a Swedish artist, considered to be the first abstract artist in Western art history. Talented in mathematics and botany, she studied painting at Tekniska skolan in Stockholm, and then the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. She initially painted landscapes, portraits and botanical illustrations, but from 1906 she began creating large scale abstract artworks as part of her explorations of theosophy and spiritualism. Believing herself to be guided by a higher power when creating these radically abstract works, she did not exhibit them in her lifetime, and left instructions for them not to be shown until two decades after her death. She is now recognized as a pioneer in abstraction, predating the works of Malevich, Kandinsky and Mondrian.  

• Dimensions 32.3 x 38.4 x 30.4 cm
• Author Kurt Almqvist and Daniel Birnbaum
• ISBN 9789198523669
• Hardback Yes
• Number of illustrations Illustrated throughout
• Publisher Stolpe Publishing
• No of pages 1569