Who was the first artist to create an abstract piece? Most folks would list either Kandinsky or Mondrian as the artist of record with both producing abstract art about 1911. In reality, the very first abstract artist was neither and was also not a man. The first artworks that could be called non representational art were done in 1906 by Swedish artist Hilma af Klint.
Af Klindt was a theosophist and a follower of Helen Blavatcky. During one of her spiritualists seances in 1905, she heard a voice that gave her the message “You are to proclaim a new philosophy of life and you yourself are to be part of the new kingdom. Your labors will bear fruit.”
In the next six months she painted a series called “Primordial Chaos” all done unconsciously during seances. Her first abstracts were small in scale but she followed with a series of wall sized pieces that she refer4red to as oversized, and finally titled the entire collection of twenty six huge works as “Paintings from the temple.: Of note, she never showed her abstract works in exhibit which allowed Kandinsky to promote himself as the founder of the Abstract Movement, even though his works were produced five years later than that of Hilma af Klint’s ground breaking art.
