Saturday, April 25, 2026 · No. 114
Artist Profile

Sigrid Hedman

Sigrid Hedman was a Swedish artist and a prominent member of De Fem (The Five), a spiritualist group that significantly influenced the early development of abstract art through automatic drawing and mediumistic practices.

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Biography

Sigrid Elisabeth Hedman was a Swedish artist active during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She is best known for her participation in De Fem, a collective of five women artists who met regularly to conduct séances and engage in spiritualist practices, which included automatic writing and drawing.

The group's collaborative work served as a foundational influence on the spiritualist explorations of Hilma af Klint. Hedman and her colleagues sought to communicate with higher spiritual beings, documenting their experiences through intricate, symbolic visual records that predated the formal emergence of abstract art in the European avant-garde.

While historical recognition has largely focused on the collective's impact on af Klint, Hedman remains a key figure in the study of early 20th-century Swedish spiritualist art. Her contributions are increasingly examined within the context of the broader movement toward abstraction and the intersection of mysticism and modernism.

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Career Highlights

  • 1896Founding of the spiritualist group De Fem
  • 1907Dissolution of the group De Fem
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