Hilma af Klint: Les peintures du temple 1906-1915

Long before leading figures of abstraction like Kandinsky and Malevich, Hilma af Klint created exceptionally bold paintings as early as 1906, combining geometry, flat planes of vibrant color, and organic motifs that foreshadowed the major movements of the 20th century. At her request, her paintings were not exhibited for several years after her death.

The Grand Palais and the Centre Pompidou have joined forces to present, for the first time in France, the Temple painting cycle (1906-1915), her magnum opus, including the famous monumental series, The Ten Greatest, which testifies to the visionary power of an artist resolutely ahead of her time.

Trained at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm, Hilma af Klint led a double artistic life: a conventional one, with traditional figurative works, and a secret one, with a resolutely avant-garde output. Nourished by her involvement in the Theosophical Society, Hilma af Klint drew the freedom of her inspiration from séances with a group of women who shared a utopian vision. Spirals, circles, and beams convey a search for cosmic harmony and the invisible forces that govern the world, lending her works a universal and timeless dimension.

To date, no major solo exhibition of the artist’s work has been shown in France, even though her oeuvre has been the subject of significant re-evaluation in recent years, particularly within the context of a re-examination of the role of women in the field of artistic modernity.

Beyond this retrospective tribute, this exhibition highlights the multiple sources of inspiration for her work (esotericism, folklore and folk art, scientific culture) and questions how art history has long ignored women artists and their contributions to foundational movements.