NFTs of paintings by Hilma af Klint, the beloved mystic and early abstractionist, are now available for purchase. The NFTs are the result of a collaboration between Stolpe Publishing, which published af Klint’s catalogue raisonné earlier this year; Acute Art, a VR and AR production company; and Pharrell Williams, the rapper and founder of GODA (Gallery of Digital Assets).
“Beautiful and meaningful art truly transcends time, and Hilma af Klint’s work is a perfect example of that,” Williams said in a statement. “We’re honored to show her work on this platform and to truly celebrate a remarkable woman.”
The NFTs come from af Klint’s series “Paintings for the Temple,” created between 1906 and 1915. The series contains 193 paintings, none of which can be sold, as they are in the hands of the Hilma af Klint Foundation, a nonprofit based in Sweden. However, the team behind the af Klint NFTs obtained permission to create and sell NFTs of the works.
Acute Art and GODA collaborated to bring to life the temple that af Klint envisioned would hold this series of paintings.
Daniel Birnbaum, artistic director of Acute Art, said in a statement, “Hilma af Klint dreamt of a spiral-shaped building large enough to show her most important works, the overwhelmingly beautiful Paintings for the Temple. It remained a fantasy. Acute Art has now—in collaboration with Stolpe Publishing—realized af Klint’s temple in virtual reality.”
There were 193 NFTs created, a number meant to correspond to the amount of paintings in the series. More than 160 of the NFTs are now available for sale through an auction on the GODA website. The remaining 30 NFTs will not go on sale “for promotional/strategic reasons,” according to GODA.
Af Klint is now considered one of the first abstract painters in Western art history, yet she was not widely recognized until a retrospective at the Guggenheim in 2018 brought her into the international spotlight. Since then, she has become a popular figure.