Hilma af Klint‘s Legacy Sparksโค Intense debate Over Control of Her Artistic Estate
Stockholm, Sweden – As the posthumous fameโ of pioneering abstract artist Hilma af Klint continues to surge, a complex andโ increasingly public dispute is unfolding in Sweden over the control and interpretation of her vast artistic legacy. The debate, playing out in legal filings, boardrooms, โคand public discourse, centers on who should โฃdefine the โmeaning of โaf Klint’s work andโ who has the right to speak for โคthe artist, decades after her death in 1944.
Af Klint, who believed she was channeling โขmessages from astral beings to create paintings representing a “truer version” of reality beyond the material world, stipulated in her willโ that her nephew, Erik af Klint, inherit her extensive โbody of work. Anโ admiral โคin the Navy, Erik initially relied on close friend Olof Sundstrรถm to catalog โขtheโ archive of over 1,200 paintings, drawings,โ and 124 notebooks. However, Erik maintained a firm grip onโฃ access, writing to Sundstrรถm in 1946 that โthe work should be โshown “only to people whoโ understand itsโ value andโฃ can feel reverence for it,” explicitly โขbarringโ journalists.
For years,โ Erik wrestled โฃwith how to best preserve and potentially โคexhibit the collection. โHe expressed conflictingโ desires, โat times suggesting a wider public exhibition to “generate interest,” while โat other times warning that public display โ”can never lead to โขanything good.” Discussions with Moderna Museetโฃ and the national museum regarding a large-scale exhibition in 1970 โฃultimately proved unsuccessful.
Inโค 1972, Erik established the Hilma af Klint foundation, entrusting the archive to theโ Anthroposophical Society of Sweden. The Foundation’s statutes, outlined in a four-page document, explicitly prohibit the sale of af Klint’s most โฃimportantโ works to ensure they remain accessible to “spiritual seekers.” Crucially, the foundation’sโค bylaws mandate that the board be chaired by a memberโ of the โฃaf Klint family, with โthe remaining positions filled by members ofโ the Anthroposophical Society – a structure thatโข is now at the heart of โthe ongoing debate over the artist’s โafterlifeโ and the future of her groundbreaking work.