Was Hilma af Klint Europe’s first abstract artist – before even Kandinsky and Mondrian?

Artist Hilma af Klint in her studio at Hamngatan, Stockholm, circa 1895. Photograph: Stiftelsen Hilma af Klints Verk. Source, Guardian

 

Kate Kellaway ; "Her face is inward, patient, unexceptional."

"I consider a photograph of her – a daguerreotype, taken in 1885, at the Royal Academy of Arts, Stockholm, from which she graduated in 1887 as a traditional landscape, portrait and botanical painter. The scene is formally set up. She holds a palette in her left hand, an open parasol is behind her. Her face is inward, patient, unexceptional. There is nothing to suggest that this woman, on the quiet, was about to produce breathtaking abstract art as if she was painting in the 21st century – and, in 1906, before Kandinsky, Malevich or Mondrian."