CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 9/2/2016

Hilma af Klint: Painting the Unseen

Clandestine early twentieth-century Swedish mystical painter Hilma af Klint's "No. 7, Adulthood, Group IV" (1907), from the Ten Largest series, was never exhibited in the artist's lifetime. Produced in secret under instructions “dictated” by a spirit named Amaliel whom af Klint contacted during séances with a group of five likeminded women artists, it was among the many dozens of paintings that the artist stipulated should not be shown until twenty years after her death—which transpired in 1944. Today, many consider af Klint the first true abstract painter—ahead of Kandinsky, Malevich and Mondrian. But for the half-century before her work was brought to light (RH Quaytman showed her work at PS1 in 1989), af Klint was a voluntary outsider who knew the world was "not ready" for her radical ideas.