Details
The image
Symmetrical forms arranged around a central axis, with delicate line work and pale colour set against a light ground. Shapes repeat and mirror each other; the drawing is precise, almost diagrammatic and the whole sheet feels closer to a botanical study or a chart than to a painting.
Where it comes from
Hilma af Klint was a Swedish painter who made abstract compositions years before the artists usually credited with inventing abstraction and she kept them largely private. Her large series were painted in the first decades of the twentieth century, driven by spiritual research and by a discipline that treated geometry as a language. She left instructions that the works should not be shown for years after her death.
On the wall
It asks for light and for quiet: a study, a bedroom, a reading corner. Because the palette is pale and the lines fine, it needs a wall that is not too dark and it rewards looking closely rather than from across the room. In a group of three it can sit at the centre as the most delicate piece.
In company
Pairs well with Scandinavian furniture, pale wood and other works on paper and it looks best in a light frame with a wide mount. Avoid hanging it beside very saturated prints, the subtlety disappears. It is also the kind of picture that changes with the light through the day. If the wall is to hold another sheet, the rest of the Hilma Af Klint collection follows the same rules.
