The Ten Largest

The Ten Largest is a series of ten large paintings in tempera on paper completed in 1907 by the Swedish artist Hilma af Klint, part of a larger body of work she called Paintings for the Temple, which she believed she produced under the guidance of spirit entities she communicated with through seances. Painted rapidly, reportedly over a period of only weeks with the help of assistants working on the studio floor to accommodate their scale, the ten canvases move through four stages of life, from childhood through youth and adulthood to old age, rendered in vivid abstract organic and geometric forms rather than any recognizable imagery. Because af Klint stipulated that her abstract paintings not be exhibited until years after her death, the series remained largely unknown until decades later, when it prompted a major reassessment of the early history of abstract art in the West.