Hilma af Klint: Seeing is believing

The result of a series of lectures delivered during the 2016 Serpentine Galleries exhibition Hilma af Klint: Painting the Unseen, this volume gathers essays examining the last abstract series made by Hilma af Klint (1862-1944). The paintings were all created in the first half of the year 1920 and are the last paintings af Klint made before turning to watercolour.

Reproductions of these images are complemented by essays from Briony Fer, David Lomas, Branden W. Joseph, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Daniel Birnbaum, which shed new light on af Klint and her importance for artists today, also addressing the need for a broader conception of art history that her work proposes.

Beautifully designed this book is a key contribution to the burgeoning scholarship on this immensely popular painter.

Table of Contents

Foreword (Kurt Almqvist & Louise Belfrage) • Plates (Hilma af Klint: Series II, III, IV, V, VI, VII and VIII) • An Extraordinary Opportunity (Hans Ulrich Obrist) • Hilma af Klint: The Outsider Inside Herself (Briony Fer) • Roots to Abstraction: Hilma af Klint and botany (David Lomas) • Knowledge, Painting, Abstraction and Desire (Branden W. Joseph) • Afterword (Daniel Birnbaum • Notes and References • Contributor