Hilma af Klint

Hilma af Klint was a Swedish painter who produced a large body of abstract paintings, beginning around 1906, that predate the work of Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, and other artists traditionally credited as the pioneers of abstract art in Europe. Deeply engaged with spiritualism and theosophy, she believed her large-scale, symbol-laden abstract series, including The Ten Largest, were produced under guidance from spiritual sources contacted through seances, and she deliberately kept most of the work unexhibited during her lifetime, stipulating in her will that it not be shown publicly for twenty years after her death. Rediscovered and exhibited widely only from the late twentieth century onward, af Klint's work has substantially revised the standard art-historical account of when and by whom abstract painting began.