[2] She belonged to a group called "The Five", comprising a circle of women inspired by Theosophy, who shared a belief in the importance of trying to contact the so-called "High Masters"—often by way of séances.

[5] She graduated with honors, and was allocated a scholarship in the form of a studio in the so-called "Atelier Building" (Ateljébyggnaden), owned by the Academy of Fine Arts between Hamngatan and Kungsträdgården in central Stockholm.

Hilma af Klint began working in Stockholm, gaining recognition for her landscapes, botanical drawings, and portraits.

[9] Af Klint’s interest in abstraction and symbolism came from an involvement in spiritism, very much in vogue at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century.

Af Klint's work can be understood in the wider context of the modernist search for new forms in artistic, spiritual, political, and scientific systems at the beginning of the twentieth century.

[11] There was a similar interest in spirituality by other artists during this same period, including Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, Kazimir Malevich, Fidus, and the French Nabis, in which many, like af Klint, were inspired by the Theosophical Movement.

[15] At the Academy of Fine Arts she met Anna Cassel, the first of the four women with whom she later worked in "The Five" (De Fem), a group of artists who shared her ideas.

"The Five" began their association as members of the Edelweiss Society, which embraced a combination of the Theosophical teachings of Helena Blavatsky and spiritualism.

[6] They recorded in a book a completely new system of mystical thought, in the form of messages from higher spirits called The High Masters ("Höga Mästare").

[16] Through her work with The Five, Hilma af Klint created experimental automatic drawing as early as 1896, leading her toward an inventive geometric visual language capable of conceptualizing invisible forces both of the inner and outer worlds.

[6] af Klint created metaphors to express the messages she was receiving from the High Masters, the spirits who the artist believed used her as a conduit.

The colour choice throughout is metaphorical: blue stands for the female spirit, yellow for the male one, and pink / red for physical / spiritual love.

Understood as gates to other dimensions, her paintings call for interpretation on a narrative, esoteric and artistic level while evoking primordial geometry and humanistic motifs.

She painted among others a series depicting the stand-points of different religions at various stages in history, as well as representations of the duality between the physical being and its equivalence on an esoteric level.

Among her last paintings made in 1930s, there are two watercolours predicting the events of World War II, titled The Blitz and The Fight in the Mediterranean.

Around 1920 in Dornach, Switzerland, af Klint met Dutch eurythmist Peggy Kloppers-Moltzer, who was also a member of The Anthroposophical Society.

Despite af Klint not having named her traveling companion, Julia Voss suggests that it was most likely Thomasine Andersson, an old friend from De Fem days.

[29] Hilma Af Klint's later period abstract art (1906–1920) delved into symbolism with a combination of geometry, figuration, scientific research and religious practices.

[30] Her individual or signature style was also marked with impressions from the late 19th and early 20th century scientific discoveries as also influenced by contemporary spiritual movements such as theosophy and anthroposophy too.

[31] Her symbolic visual language has an ordered progression that reflects her understanding of grids, circles, spirals and petal-like forms—sometimes diagrammatic, sometimes biomorphic.

While every such geometric form, in this case, Spiral suggests growth, progress and evolution, color choices also are metaphorical in nature.

In 2017, Norwegian architectural firm Snøhetta presented plans for an exhibition centre dedicated to af Klint in Järna, south of Stockholm, with estimated building costs of €6 to 7.5 million.

[39] In February 2018, the Foundation signed a long-term agreement of cooperation with the Moderna Museet, thereby confirming the perennity of the Hilma af Klint Room, i.e., a dedicated space at the museum where a dozen works of the artist are shown on a continuous basis.