Hilma af Klint The Ten Largest Adulthood

Hilma af Klint (1862-1944) was a visionary Swedish artist and pioneer of abstract art, creating non-representational works years before her contemporaries, such as Kandinsky and Mondrian.

The Ten Largest (1907) is a series of ten paintings representing the four stages of human development: childhood, youth, adulthood, and old age. Unusually large for works on paper, they were over 10 feet tall and most likely painted stretched out on her studio floor. Our vase is inspired by one of the works in the series entitled Group IV Adulthood No. 5. Perhaps representing early adulthood, a large flower dominates the composition, accompanied by scrolling calligraphy in her own invented language of exuberant letter shapes and forms playing against a textured pink background.

The pictures were painted directly through me, without any preliminary drawings, and with great force. I had no idea what the paintings were supposed to depict; nevertheless I worked swiftly and surely, without changing a single brush stroke. −Hilma af Klint

Hilma af Klint (Swedish, 1862-1944)
The Ten Largest – Group IV - Adulthood, 1907
Tempera on paper mounted on canvas. 126 in. x 93 in.
Hilma af Klint Foundation