Beyond the Visible: Hilma af Klint
Documentary by Halina Dryschka
Year: 2019; Origin: Germany
Runtime: 93 mins; Color
Language: English, German, and Swedish
Subtitles: English
Studio: Zeitgeist Films
Release date: April 17, 2020

Vasily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian are credited with pioneering the European abstract art movement and their highly influential early 20th century works have long been integrated into our pop culture. But in recent years, it’s come to light that another artist — a woman, in fact — actually began creating abstract paintings before Kandinsky. That person was Hilma af Klint, the subject of a new documentary from Zeitgeist Films.

Beyond the Visible: Hilma af Klint, which opens virtually this weekend, explores the life and works of this truly pioneering Swedish artist, who took her first foray into abstract painting in 1906, several years before Kandinsky. She even died the same year as Kandinsky and Mondrian (1944). So why has this visionary never been credited until recently?

Through interviews with current artists, art and science historians and curators, and af Klint’s surviving relatives, along with up-close looks at and readings from journals entries, sketches, and paintings, director Halina Dryschka seeks to introduce the world to this little-known artist who broke gender boundaries of the time, created a new art style, and died in obscurity.