Art Guide · Art movements

Abstract art

1907 – 1930

Abstract art is built purely from colour, form and line, without imitating the visible world. It developed from 1906 with Hilma af Klint and from the 1910s with Kandinsky, Mondrian and Klee.

Shop Abstract art posters Poster prints of these works are in the collection.

Last updated: 3 October 2026 · Iconica Society editors

Different paths

There was no single road to abstraction. Kandinsky reached an emotional abstraction by thinking of colour like music; Mondrian simplified the tree motif step by step until he arrived at right angles and primary colours; Hilma af Klint began from a spiritual system. In Russia, Malevich took abstraction to its extreme with Black Square (1915). The Bauhaus carried this language into design and architecture.