When the Story of Art Was Overturned by a New Discovery

The debate over who invented abstraction, from Kandinsky to Af Klint

Left: The Ten Largest, No 3, Youth (1907) by Hilma af Klint. Oil & tempera on paper. 328 × 240 cm. Hilma af Klint Foundation, Sweden. Image source Wikimedia Commons. Right: Detail of ‘Composition V’ (1911) by Wassily Kandinsky. Oil on canvas. 190 × 275 cm. Private collection. Image source WikiArt

For decades, it was thought that the first artist to take the momentous step of painting entirely abstract art was Wassily Kandinsky in 1911.

What the historians didn’t consider was that there was someone else entirely removed from…