The eye of God stares out of a swirling storm of line and colour, like the eye of a whale seen through turbulent oceanic depths. It is awe-inspiring. The abstract art of Georgiana Houghton summons up strange powers of the imagination that stir deep regions of the soul. Her labyrinths of red and gold, purple and brown can be joyous and ecstatic, oppressive and eerie, but always they are tremulously expressive – and completely out of time.

Spiritualist artist Georgiana Houghton gets UK exhibition Read more

Houghton is arguably the first ever abstract artist. In 1871, three years before the famous impressionists exhibition was held in Paris, she staged an exhibition of her almost entirely non-figurative watercolours in London. Her visionary art fascinated, provoked and impressed the Victorian public. So why was she completely forgotten and why is this show – first seen in Australia and now at the Courtauld – her first exhibition in a public art gallery?

One reason is that she was a woman in a world that only saw artistic genius in men. Another is that she never claimed to be the creator of her art anyway. Houghton was a medium. She worked at the height of the Victorian craze for spiritualism, communicating with the dead at her seances. Not only did the dear departed speak to her. They guided her hand when she drew. All her cosmic designs are spirit drawings, made by the hand of Georgiana Houghton yet created by the spirits of the dead working through her.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Out of time’ ... The Eye of the Lord (1 Sept 1870) by Georgiana Houghton. Photograph: Victorian Spiritualists’ Union, Melbourne, Australia

This woman was a genius who could only create and show her art by attributing it to dead white males

Shut into the gallery alone to review the exhibition, I suddenly feel uneasy. So many ghosts. The supernatural origin of Houghton’s drawings is carefully explained on the reverse of each chromatic starburst, in illustrated annotations reminiscent of William Blake, who also claimed to see visions and draw the supernatural, but whose art never leaps into the abstraction Houghton dares. A kaleidoscopic fantasia of peacock patterns floating in a forest of deep colour overlaid with delicate white traceries is, explains the text on the reverse, the work of Titian, no less. A spooky portrait of Christ emerging out of golden light and cobwebby arabesques –one of the few figurative images in her art – is ascribed to Saint Luke, the apostle who according to medieval tradition was a skilled artist who portrayed the Virgin Mary from life.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Georgiana Houghton, c.1882. Photograph: Siyu Chen Lewis/Victorian Spiritualists’ Union, Melbourne, Australia

Why are there so few famous women in the history of art? This exhibition proves it’s because we look in the wrong places. Before the 20th century, women were excluded from the professional art world by guilds and academies that put men first. Misogynist critics argue even today that the resulting invisibility means men are somehow more naturally talented (as the late Brian Sewell liked to claim). The discovery of Georgiana Houghton turns that nonsense upside down.

This woman was a genius – yet she could only create and show her art by attributing it, quite literally, to dead white males. Because of her spiritualist beliefs she has been consigned to the cultural margins and dismissed as an eccentric. The art here does not come from museums. Much of it has been lent by the Victorian Spiritualists’ Union in Melbourne. This is the kind of place where the art of women lies hidden: in spiritualist archives, botanical albums, embroideries, diaries and other refuges for disdained creativity.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Reminiscent of Blake ... the back of Houghton’s work The Eye of the Lord. Photograph: Victorian Spiritualists’ Union, Melbourne, Australia

Very little is known about Houghton’s artistic development. Her own statements attribute her talent to the glorious dead. Yet her earliest watercolours are opulently reimagined studies of flowers. It seems likely she had some training as a floral artist, one of the visual practices considered respectable for Victorian women. What is much harder to explain is how she made the leap into abstract art 50 years before Kandinsky.

Victorian society dreaded the emptiness of any hint of the abstract. When John Ruskin accused the painter Whistler in 1877 of “throwing a pot of paint in the face of the public” in his impressionistic Nocturnes, Whistler sued and was humiliated by a farthing’s damages. Yet under these mens’ noses and behind the veil of spiritualism Houghton leapt much further, right into pure abstraction.

Rescued at last, her genius soars. With their layered, almost three dimensional worlds of wild colour touched off by subtle, delicate lacy mist, these powerful creations remind me of some of Jackson Pollock’s paintings. They also share the intensity and authenticity that makes great abstract painters like Pollock, Kandinsky and Rothko compelling. Like the very best art of modern times, Houghton’s is driven by inner truth. From where does that truth emerge?Houghton said it came from beyond the grave. I almost believe her. Some holy fire blazes in this eye-opening exhibition.

• Georgiana Houghton: Spirit Drawings is at the Courtauld Gallery, London from 16 June to 11 September