This exhibition is the first major retrospective in Asia of Hilma af Klint (1862–1944), a pioneer of abstract painting. The painter from Sweden has been reevaluated in recent years as a creator of abstract paintings that preceded her contemporaries, such as Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian. For many years, her oeuvre of more than 1,000 works was known only to a very few people.

As late as in the 1980s, several exhibitions began to introduce her works, and by the turn of the 21st century, her presence became international all at once. Her 2018 retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, attracted more than 600,000 visitors, the largest attendance in the museum’s history. As of 2019.

Including The ten largest (1907), a set of ten paintings over three meters high, all 140 works in this exhibition will travel to Japan for the first time. Centering on her representative accomplishment, The paintings for the temple (1906–15), the exhibition will provide an overview of af Klint’s career in five chapters, while introducing materials left by the artist and diverse sources of her inspiration, including the esotericism and the women’s movements of her time.