Some years ago, I came across the name Hilma af Klint (1862-1944) for the first time. I initially took a double-take, thought that this may have been an error and that the reference was actually to the well-known male Austrian symbolist painter Gustav Klimt. Indeed, my ignorance of her reflects the manner in which af Klint and a whole army of other female artists have been traditionally sidelined by art history. While Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) was for many years deemed to be the “founder” of abstract painting, af Klint had painted in a consciously abstract manner a full five years…

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