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Hilma af Klint: A Biography by Julia Voss review – portrait of the painter as a mystic
The Swedish abstract artist who conversed with the dead is described as a woman years ahead of her time in this scholarly, sympathetic study.
The voices in her head told Hilma af Klint she would be a great artist.
- Madoc Cairns
- The Guardian
They weren’t wrong. Born in 1862, she was unusual from an early age.
Growing up in austere Lutheran Sweden, Af Klint studied art at university: a rare feat for a woman.
Even less common was her insistence on practising as a professional after graduation. In the face of a society – and an art world – riddled with extreme misogyny, a quiet, conventional career in portraiture seemed the best she could hope for.
But then, as…