Hilma af Klint, Elena Ferrante, secrecy, and "Cat Person"

On apologies, authority, and allowability

Hilma af Klint in her Stockholm studio circa 1900

Upon Hilma af Klint’s death in 1944, her nephew inherited 1,200 paintings that her will stipulated not be made available to the public until twenty years after her death and never to be sold.

When the nephew approached Stockholm’s Moderna Museet in the 1960s and offered the work, the bequest was declined. …