Hilma af Klint — Les Galeries nationales du Grand Palais — Exhibition — Slash Paris

In 7 months: May 6 → August 30, 2026

In spring 2026, the Grand Palais and the Centre Pompidou will dedicate an unprecedented exhibition to Hilma af Klint (1862–1944), an artist whose work disrupts the conventional chronology of modern art. Long before established figures of abstraction such as Kandinsky or Malevich, Hilma af Klint created, as early as 1906, paintings of extraordinary boldness, combining geometry, fields of vivid color, and organic motifs, anticipating the major currents of the 20th century.

For this occasion, the Grand Palais and the Centre Pompidou are presenting, for the first time in France, the Paintings for the Temple cycle (1906–1915), her magnum opus, including the famous monumental Ten Largest series, which attests to the visionary power of an artist decisively ahead of her time.

Trained at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm, Hilma af Klint led a double artistic life: conventional, with traditional figurative works, and secret, with a decidedly avant-garde production. Inspired by her involvement in the Theosophical Society, she drew the freedom of her creativity from spiritualist sessions held with a group of women who shared her utopian vision. Spirals, circles, and beams express a search for cosmic harmony and the invisible forces governing the world, giving her works a universal and timeless dimension.

Hilma af Klint chose not to reveal her abstract work to her contemporaries, stipulating in her will that the paintings remain sealed for twenty years after her death. This contributed to the late recognition of her work. It was not until 1986, during The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890–1985 exhibition in Los Angeles, that her abstract paintings were shown to the public for the first time, marking the beginning of her international acclaim.

To date, no major monographic exhibition of the artist has been held in France, even as her work has undergone significant reevaluation in recent years, particularly within a reassessment of women’s contributions to modern art. Hilma af Klint remains little seen in French museums, while the world increasingly recognizes her as a central figure of modernity and the early history of abstraction.

Beyond this retrospective tribute, the exhibition highlights the multiple sources of inspiration for her work—esotericism, folklore and folk art, scientific culture—and questions how art history long ignored women artists and their contributions to foundational movements. Hilma af Klint emerges as an essential figure, capable of transcending the boundaries between art, science, and spirituality, continuing to inspire new generations. A unique opportunity to discover an artist who, while deeply rooted in her time, seemed to converse with the future.

Curator: Pascal Rousseau, Professor at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne