Hilma af Klint and Wassily Kandinsky

Hilma af Klint (1862–1944) is now regarded as a pioneer of abstract art. Though her paintings were rarely seen publicly until 1986, her work from the early twentieth century predates the first purely abstract paintings by Kandinsky, Mondrian, and Malevich. Af Klint was born in Solna, outside Stockholm, and studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm from 1882 to 1888. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’s 2018 survey of af Klint’s work was the first major solo exhibition in the United States devoted to the artist, offering an unprecedented opportunity to experience af Klint’s long-underrecognized artistic achievements. Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944), the renowned abstract painter, first studied law and economics in his native Russia before committing to making art in his thirties. He moved to Munich, where he cofounded the group Der Blaue Reiter (the Blue Rider) and published his seminal text On the Spiritual in Art in 1911. After the Russian Revolution, Kandinsky became involved in the Bolsheviks’ cultural administration and its committees. However, his spiritual views were at odds with the materialistic ideology of Soviet society, prompting him to return to Germany in 1920. There, he taught at the Bauhaus school of art and architecture from 1922 until its closure by the Nazis in 1933. He then relocated to France, where he spent the remainder of his life working as an artist. Julia Vossis an art historian, art critic, and curator. She is the author of Hilma af Klint: A Biography (2022), which was short-listed for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize. Daniel Birnbaum is a writer and curator. He is professor of philosophy at the Städelschule in Frankfurt and the artistic director of Acute Art in London.