Spiritualist Abstractionism and the Fluid Identity

Abstract

Hilma af Klint, Emma Kunz, and Agnes Pelton were only recently recognized as prominent figures in the art historical canon despite producing some of the earliest known non-representational bodies of work, pre-dating that of contemporaries like Kandinsky and Mondrian. All three women would employ their Spiritualist faith and ideology as the driving force behind their art practice. This paper will examine the role of Western Spiritualism as a catalyst for queer women artists to pioneer the field of abstraction in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. I will dissect the socio-political circumstances during the Third Great Awakening that impacted the progression of the women's rights movement and subsequently shaped these artists' abilities to live culturally subversive lifestyles. I will also explore the resurgent trend of new-age Spiritualism and the increased perceptiveness toward queer identities that have elicited modern-day recognition and exhibition of these artists over the past decade.