What Stands Behind the Flowers

By Hilma af Klint

"At the turn of the Twentieth Century, the Swedish artist and mystic Hilma af Klint created a body of work that left visible reality behind, exploring the radical possibilities of abstraction years before the movement’s male luminaries Kandinsky, Malevich, or Mondrian. More than a mere “pioneer of abstraction in art,” Hilma af Klint focused her rigorous attention on the micro and the macro, the perceptible and invisible worlds of nature and the universe, mobilizing her artistic talent into a unique vocabulary in service of her vision and the dissemination of information. Her intense observation of and spiritual engagement with the flora of her native Sweden, across the spring and summer seasons of 1919 and 1920, is the focal point of What Stands Behind the Flowers—a truly wonderful volume, in content and design—which, together with Notes and Methods from 2018, stands among my favorite books about af Klint’s artistic investigations into invisible relationships and hidden dimensions."
–Herbert Pföstl

Across the spring and summer seasons of 1919 and 1920, Swedish artist Hilma af Klint engaged in a period of intense observation of nature, venturing into forests and fields and drawing the flowers she found there. The resulting 46 sheets comprise her Nature Studies portfolio, recently acquired by the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In pencil and jewel-toned watercolor, af Klint juxtaposed exquisitely rendered blossoms with enigmatic diagrams: a blooming sunflower is echoed by nested circles; lily of the valley is joined by a colorful checkerboard; catsfoot is set against a pair of mirrored spirals. Together, these two modes—representational and abstract—demonstrate the artist’s belief that close observation of nature reveals "what stands behind the flowers": ineffable aspects of the human character.

Published in conjunction with the first public exhibition of this rare portfolio, Hilma af Klint: What Stands Behind the Flowers presents the drawings alongside contextualizing artworks and translations of the artist’s previously unpublished writings. An overview essay by curator Jodi Hauptman explores af Klint’s portfolio and the circumstances of its creation; texts by Ewa Lajer-Burcharth, Laura Neufeld and Lena Struwe unpack the imagery, materiality and botanical knowledge behind these works.

2025; hardcover; 10.9" x 9.4"; 208 pages, 160 ills; ISBN: 9781633451681.