Meet Hilma af Klint,
a pioneer of abstract art.
af Klint began working as an artist in Sweden
around the turn of the 20th century.
She belonged to the first generation of women
to train at the Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm
and became a successful
portraitist and landscape painter.
She was interested in science, maths, nature
and, like many artists and thinkers
at the time, spiritualism.
af Klint met regularly with four women
for prayer, seances and meditation.
They called themselves "The Five."
It was during these meetings
that af Klint believed
she was called upon by spirits
who guided and inspired her
to create new images.
The results were unlike
anything seen in art at the time.
Otherworldly shapes,
cryptic symbols and words
filled giant canvases
in radiant colour combinations.
Even Kandinsky, Mondrian and Malevich,
the artists historically
credited with making the first
European abstract images,
were yet to make this creative leap.
But af Klint's attempts
to find a receptive audience were unsuccessful.
She believed her paintings
contained messages for all humanity,
but that only a future audience
would understand them.
She left instructions for them
to be hidden from public view until
at least 20 years after her death.
af Klint left behind over 125 notebooks
and more than a thousand artworks,
an extraordinary artistic legacy.
Their re-discovery gives us,
now, the chance to unravel
the enigma of Hilma af Klint.
and to consider how her life's work
changes the story of modern art.