Hilma af Klint was the
fourth child of captain Victor af Klint and his wife Mathilda (née Sonntag). Hilma´s
oldest sister Anna died at the age of one. Her brother Gustaf was born in 1858
and her sister Ida in 1860. Hilma came into the world on October 26, 1862 at
Karlberg Castle, the naval college where her father trained cadets. Her
youngest sister, Hermina, was born in 1870 but died in 1880, by which time
Hilma had already begun her art studies.
Hilma´s father was the third generation
of naval officers within the family which has been passed on to further three
generations.
Most time of the summer the family
spent in a small cottage at Tofta farm on the island of Adelsö in the Lake
Mälar. Tofta and the nearby property of Hanmora belonged to the family and had
been acquired by her grandfather in the beginning of the 1800s. Several
relatives lived at Hanmora and there was a lively exchange of visits between
the two households. It was in these idyllic surroundings that young Hilma came
to close contact with nature at an early stage in her life. Nature studies and
plant life were later to pay an important role in her work. Through her father
she also pick up an interest for mathematics.
When she was ten years old the
family left Karlberg and moved into Stockholm. After the move to Stockholm
Hilma was put into the Normalskola for girls.
Hilma´s fondness for nature led to
an interest in artistic expression and she began to study at The Polytechnic
School, now the Swedish School of Arts, Crafts and Design. At the same time, or
a little later, she studied under Kerstin Cardon, a popular portrait painter
who had a number of pupils.
Early on, religion played a decisive
role in Hilma´s life. At the time of her sister Hermina´s death in 1880,
spiritism and mediumistic powers became a significant element in her life.
In 1882 she started studying at the
Academy of Fine Arts. This means that she must have already shown artistic
promise during her school years. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts for
five years where she distinguished herself as a conscientious student. Her
teachers were Georg von Rosen, August Malmström and per Daniel Holm. During her
student days she formed friendship with Lotten Rönquist, Elisabeth Wahring,
Charlotte Wahlström and Anna Cassel. Anna Cassel, in particular, became close
to Hilma and they struck up a life long friendship.
There is nothing to directly
indicate that as a student Hilma took active part in the freedom struggle
against the teaching, which the male students, with Ernst Josephson at the
centre, waged during her time at the Academy.
It was primarily landscapes and
portraits, which came to engage Hilma´s, interest during her extrovert period
as an artist. From the end of the 1880s until 1908 she had a studio at
Hamngatan 5 in Stockholm. At the end of the 19th century the area
around Kungsträdgården was a field of cultural energy, at the centre of which
was the building in which Blanch´s art salon and café was housed.
In 1900 – 1901 Hilma and her friend
Anna Cassel´s passionate interest in nature led to their working as draughtsmen
at the Veterinary Institute in Stockholm. As a draughtsman she also created
illustrations for periodicals such as Julklappen (Christmas gifts).
Hilma came into contact with spiritualist
circles in Stockholm at an early stage. Already as a child she had shown that
she had the gift for medium ship and had had visions of the future. She also
took part in organized spiritualist séances between 1879 – 1882. It was during
this period that her sister became sick and died. This fact could explain why
she became involved in spiritualist circles.
Her bequest includes a notebook,
which shows that she was in contact with the Edelweissförbundet (Edelweiss
Association), which had links with the ladies Foch and von Rosen. She joined
the association 1986, but left shortly afterwards, possibly because she found
herself confronted by women as strong willed and domineering as herself.
Her ties with Christianity were
strong. Together with her cousin Aurora Helleday she ran the Sunday school at
the Hanmora farm during 1890s.
In time spiritualism gave rise to
Theosophy, and many spiritualists gradually went over to H.P.Blavatsky´s
movement. This was the road Hilma was to take.
At the turn of the century Hilma was
a relatively well-established portrait painter and had also earned a reputation
as a landscape artist. She exhibited at Blanch´s art salon in Stockholm.
Together with her academy friend
Anna Cassel, Hilma and the three other women formed a small circle, which held
spiritualist meetings. Several exercise books among her papers contain notes on
their spiritualist séances. The oldest is from 1892. The books have different
names, the more important being called D.F.´s book (de fem – the five’s book).
The first notes in it are from 1897 and they go on until 1907. The women also
called their association Fredagsgruppen (The Friday Group) and there are
photographs showing how they arranged the room where they met. Building an
altar was of outmost importance. Surrounding the altar they arranged a ring of
kneeling palates. There was also an armchair for the unconscious medium who sat
in a trance and conveyed messages from the spiritual world. On the altar was a
cross, and an altarpiece reinforced the sacral impression. The altar utensils
also included a gilded triangle standing behind the cross.
On reading the early notebooks we
see that the women would begin their meetings by reading a text from the Bible.
At first they used a psychograph to make contact with the other side. Soon, no
such arrangement was necessary: rather the medium fell into trance and directly
passed on messages, which the others took down in notebooks. Soon Hilma herself
came to be the most important medium.
Apart from the messages, which were
of great importance, another element gradually came into the picture. The women
were urged to take up paper and pen and allow their hands to carry out
automatic writing. The writing was sometimes legible, but most often we can
only observe how the hand moved rhythmically over the paper. This automatic
writing soon developed into automatic drawing. These were not executed by a
single individual, and the automatic drawings are sometimes signed D.F. (The
Five) or with the first names or initials of those who held the pen.
Technically the drawings are quite varied.
A communication, which reached the
group members through the psychograph in 1905, says: Protect your drawings. They
are pictures of drenching waves of ether that await you one day when your ears
and eyes can apprehend a higher summons.
Three
different inspirators for these activities are named in the notebooks. They are
called Gregor, Clemens and Ananda. They constitute high
guides or gurus and had in turn assistants of lesser dignity who saw to the
women’s training. They were to make them into loyal instruments. To begin with
the contact was of mediumistic nature. The message was received during trance
or sleep. One goal was that through extensive work on themselves the women
should achieve a state in which they would be able to carry out the guru’s
wishes while fully conscious.