ARLIS/NA Reviews

ISSN 2374-4723 | arlisna.org/arlisna-reviews

The latest in art publishing, reviewed by art information
professionals and published on a bimonthly basis.

Hilma af Klint: Notes and Methods

by Christine Burgin. University of Chicago Press, September 2018. 288 p. ill. 9780226591933
(h/c), $45.00.

Reviewed January 2019 Emily Leon, Independent Scholar, evleon88@gmail.com

Swedish artist Hilma af Klint was an artistic and

spiritual polymath at the turn of the twentieth
century who worked on her own terms in a variety
of media throughout her life. Editor Christine
Burgin’s Hilma af Klint: Notes and Methods is the
first English translation of select af Klint writings
that highlights the depth and range of her
spiritual, scientific, and aesthetic oeuvre. This
hardcover facsimile of 300 high quality color
plates is accompanied by translations of text, in
addition to definitions of letters and words that
appear in af Klint’s paintings and drawings.

The book is divided into an introduction, six main

sections, and an afterward by Johan af Klint. The
intro and main sections include commentary by
Iris Müller-Westermann. Each section
incorporates concise biographical information on
af Klint and translations from Swedish to English
by Kerstin Lind Bonnier and Elizabeth Clark
Wessel. More importantly, each notebook is accompanied by its archival number for reference.
Archival research is relatively absent in the scholarship on the artist. As such, the inclusion of
reference numbers is essential information for art historians and research practitioners
interested in a closer examination of archival materials available at the Hilma af Klint
Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden. This book is paramount in pushing the dialogue on af Klint
and her role in European modernism further.

The section “Letters and Words Pertaining to Work by Hilma af Klint” is of particular
importance. It demonstrates the significant role language played in af Klint’s work. This
extensive compilation of translated words and letters is alphabetized and easily searchable. It
indicates symbolic complexity while acting as a quick reference guide for researchers interested

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. To
view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO
Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA.
 ARLIS/NA Reviews
ISSN 2374-4723 | arlisna.org/arlisna-reviews
The latest in art publishing, reviewed by art information
professionals and published on a bimonthly basis.

in a more thorough visual analysis of af Klint’s work. Until now, no such reference has been
available.

Every university art library should have a copy of Notes and Methods on their shelf. The book
broadens an understanding of af Klint’s visual vocabulary from the late 1800s through the first
two decades of the 1900s. The dominance of images provides the reader with the breadth of
her artistic concerns and some of the underlying structures in her work. The book also
expounds on af Klint’s myriad interests in science, mathematics, esotericism, and mysticism. Art
history is only now beginning to dig deeper into af Klint’s life and work. This book and the
Guggenheim Museum’s exhibition catalog Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future (2018) will be
the definitive texts on the artist for years to come.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. To
view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO
Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA.