Hilma af Klint and Pamela Colman Smith

Reflections on two artist-channelers

I could sit here all day, surrounded by the strange pastel palette of Hilma af Klint’s paintings. The Tate Modern in London has done a respectful job of honoring the whole of her talent, ultimately crediting her as one of the earliest and most impressive abstract artists of the early 20th century.

From the Hilma af Klint exhibit at the Tate Modern, London, September 2023

But I’ve come for the juicy part.

I want to learn about her Spiritualism, occult Theosophy, and her efforts to translate channeled messages into visual form. She has all this in common with Tarot Great, Pamela Colman Smith, after all.

People don’t often credit Pamela Colman Smith with channeling, but her deck has an alchemical quality to it. It is greater than the sum of its parts, which happens when a work of art is informed by the divine.

The difference is that Hilma af Klint was explicit about her channeling. Through years of seances and other devotions, she met several Ascended Masters that she could call by name. She described her artistic process as a partnership with them — one in which she strove to translate their universal wisdom into visual form. It seems very much like a visual equivalent of automatic writing.

Her boldest example is the series known as the “10 Largest.”

I would have taken more pix, but the room was wall-to-wall people

These huge paintings were made in 1907 in Sweden, two years before publication of the Waite-Smith tarot deck in England. They are named and shown in order from “Childhood” to “Old Age,” and read something like an abstract version of the Fool’s Journey from the tarot Major Arcana cards.

Af Klint famously insisted that her paintings not be shown until at least 20 years after her death, believing that the world would not be ready to receive its messages within her lifetime. It feels flattering, as a visitor today, to imagine that I’m the audience she’d been waiting for.

But am I?

I leave the exhibit thinking probably not. While Pamela Colman-Smith poured her magic into a 500-year old vessel that I can study and understand — the Tarot — Hilma Af Klint struck out with a language all her own. And although I find it attractive, I can’t quite pick up the thread.

I read recently that there is a new deck created by some Af Klint fans (The Abstract Futures deck). Perhaps this is what I need: a Google Translate tool for the metaphysical traveler.

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Yetta Snow is a professional tarot reader and educator based in Seattle, Washington. Her business, Present Day Tarot, approaches the Tarot as a way to bring meaning into every moment of every day.

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