Flutterby™! : Abstract Expressionism

The First Abstract Painter Was a Woman

Wassily Kandinsky has long been widely regarded as the forefather of abstraction, but as the shows of Af Klint’s work clearly establish, her abstract paintings predate his by several years. “As of 1906, that is, nearly six years before what is recognized as the inaugural date of abstract painting,” wrote Pascal Rousseau in the catalogue accompanying the Berlin show, “Hilma af Klint, who lives away from the axis of modernity (Paris/Munich/Milan), was painting abstract, sometimes monumental works.”