Image: National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin
The National Gallery of Ireland has announced 'Hilma af Klint: Artist and Visionary', the first major exhibition in Ireland dedicated to the Swedish artist’s work. The show opens in Dublin on 15 October 2026 and continues until 7 February 2027 in Rooms 6-10, with tickets priced from free to €16. The exhibition is developed in partnership with the Hilma af Klint Foundation and is organised in collaboration with the same foundation.
The Gallery describes af Klint as one of Europe’s foremost abstract painters and one of Sweden’s most celebrated modern artists. The forthcoming exhibition will bring together paintings, drawings and watercolours, presenting a substantial overview of a practice that the institution says remained largely unknown outside Sweden for decades. According to the Gallery, many of af Klint’s spiritual paintings were kept in storage until the 1980s and were seldom shown beyond her close circle during her lifetime.
The exhibition is framed around the spiritual and intellectual influences that shaped af Klint’s art. The Gallery says her work was profoundly informed by spirituality, including her explorations of Rosicrucianism, Theosophy and Anthroposophy. It also notes that she sought to make sense of the modern world through art, drawing inspiration from nature, science and religion. The exhibition aims to show how those strands came together in a visionary abstract style described by the Gallery as highly charged emotionally, spiritually and chromatically.
Works identified for the display include 'The Swan' (1914–15) and 'Altarpieces' (1915), alongside plant studies, early portraits and landscapes. The Gallery says some of these works have never been publicly exhibited before. The exhibition is curated by Janet McLean, Curator of Modern Art at the National Gallery of Ireland.
Af Klint’s name has become central to modern art history in recent years, but the National Gallery’s announcement stresses the relative rarity of a large-scale presentation of her work in Ireland. The exhibition has been developed with the Hilma af Klint Foundation, reflecting the role of the foundation in preserving and contextualising her archive and artworks. The Gallery’s own description positions the show as a chance to examine the time, place and circumstances that shaped af Klint’s artistic vision.
The exhibition is also one of several 2026 projects linked by the Gallery to Ireland’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union. It is funded as part of the Culture Programme for that presidency, and the Gallery lists it among other upcoming exhibitions, including 'Rembrandt to Matisse – A Celebration of European Works on Paper' and 'Jan Steen: Sacred and Profane'. For 'Hilma af Klint: Artist and Visionary', the Gallery says the run will be from 15 October 2026 to 7 February 2027.
