A Guest Blog from a Visit to the Museum of Modern Art

July 28, 2025

A Guest Blog from a Visit to the Museum of Modern Art

If you're in New York City any time between now and September 27th, try to make a visit to the Museum of Modern Art, MoMA, and see Hilma af Klint: What Stands Behind the Flowers. It's a beautiful exhibition of drawings by the pioneering artist.

Hilma af Klint (1862-1944) was a Swedish painter and mystic whose abstract works are considered some of the first in Western art history. From 1919 to 1920, Hilma completed the 46 botanical illustrations showcasing her interpretations of Sweden's flowers, plants, and trees and their spiritual connections. The display includes Hilma's abstract watercolors of her country's seasons as well as some of her personal notes. My operations manager, Matt Krack, went to see the collection earlier this summer and found it both inspiring and informational.

Here are some of Matt's photos, enjoy.

: Hilma af Klint studied drawing, portrait painting, and botanical and landscape illustration. Before she died, she requested her work be preserved and not displayed for 20-years after her death. Today, this collection of drawings is on view for the very first time.

: The exhibit “Hilma af Klint: What Stands Behind the Flowers” presents her daily observations of nature during the spring and summer months of 1919 and 1920 and how they unveil a deeper look into the human condition.

: The portfolio shows Hilma’s connection to nature in everything from sunflowers to tulips and insects, and even the foliage of trees. She shows many of the elements still observed in nature today. In fact, I grow many of the flowers and trees seen in these pieces.

: Magnifying glasses are provided for those interested in seeing the minute details of Hilma’s drawings.

: This drawing done in April of 1919 shows Anemone hepatica and on the bottom Corylus avellana, the common filbert.

: Many of these works also show diagrams of their spiritual significance. Here is a selection of flowers done in June fo 1919 – True forget-me-not, viburnum, and small cow-wheat. Spiritually, these illustrate tenderness, disobedience and modesty.

: In this piece, Hilma draws European barberry, European columbine, and Silene nutans, Nottingham catchfly.

: Do you recognize this? It is a yellow iris. Its spiritual connection is described as reverence for the power of thought. Hilma’s visual representations were often matched to very complex spiritual ideas.

: This is Papaver rhaeas or a corn poppy. Hilma’s abstract works also predated many of her male counterparts such as Kandinsky and Mondrian.

: And these are the leaves of Tilia vulgaris, or the common linden. It was drawn on July 29, 1919.

: In this piece, Hilma shows Binens, three-parted beggarticks, which is in the sunflower family. She also groups it with Sedum telephium, Orpine, and Lathyrus odorata, the sweet pea.

: This drawing features a common lilac, Syringa vulgaris. Here, Hilma feels the power of Zoroaster can be found in both white and violet lilacs.

: Here, Hilma shows a bulbous buttercup, European ash, together with a barn funnel weaver, or a domestic house spider as it is known in Europe – spiritually describing the ability for lively thinking.

: This smooth hawthorn, Crataegus oxyacaantha, is connected to Hilma’s view of reproduction.

: This is a Narcissus poeticus, Poet’s narcissus, showing Hilma’s description of the belief in the power of youth.

: And this is a tulip, complete from bloom to bulb. Hilma uses watercolor, pencil, ink and metallic paint on paper for many of her works.

: Here is a beautiful and detailed sketch of a white wagtail bird – a small, slender passerine bird known for its distinctive black, white, and gray plumage and tail-wagging behavior.

: This is one from an arrangement of abstract pieces that closes the exhibit. It is called “Pansy.” The series contains bright and energetic paintings using wet on wet watercolors – a more fun and free use of expression. If you can, do stop in at the MoMA and see the presentation – a first time offering of Hilma af Klint. It’s on view until September 27th.