Abstraction creation

Rythme I by Robert Delaunay , 1934

Abstraction-Création was on 15 February 1931 on the initiative of the Belgian painter, sculptor and architect Georges Vantongerloo in Paris , founded cosmopolitan association of artists of Modernism , which existed until 1937. Other founding members - many of whom previously belonged to the group " Cercle et Carré ", others from Theo van Doesburgs Art concret - were Sophie Taeuber-Arp , Hans Arp , Theo van Doesburg, Antoine Pevsner , Naum Gabo and Auguste Herbin . The group quickly grew to nearly 400 members.

The aim of "Abstraction-Création" was to create a forum for abstract art . This included joint exhibitions, readings and discussions, as well as public relations work and publications. The group became a spiritual and organizational center and a meeting point for the concerns of representatives of the concrete , constructivist and geometric art movements.

In the years from 1932 to 1937 the artists' association published the almanac "Abstraction-Création, Art non-figuratif". The association did a lot of theoretical and methodological preparatory work for non-representational art. The artists engaged in color studies, in which physical-optical phenomena were explored that affect the eyesight of the beholder. These include, for example, flicker effects and three-dimensional color vision.

The content and publicity of “Abstraction-Création” and its exhibitions contributed significantly to increasing the social recognition of abstract art.

The group "Abstraction-Création" dissolved in 1937.

Most of the most important artists of the group "Abstraction-Création" were later represented, mostly several times, at the Documenta in Kassel , especially from 1955 to 1964 at documenta 1 , documenta II and documenta III , which focused on abstract art.

Members

Members of the Abstraction-Création group included (in chronological order of their years of birth):

Wassily Kandinsky * (1866–1944), Russian painter František Kupka (1871–1957), Czech painter Piet Mondrian * (1872–1944), Dutch painter and art theorist Katherine Sophie Dreier (1877–1952), painter, art patron and art collector Auguste Herbin (1882–1960), French painter Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931), Dutch painter, architect and art theorist; Art concret Sonia Delaunay (1885–1979), French painter Robert Delaunay (1885–1941), French painter Alexandra Povòrina (1885–1963), Russian-German painter Antoine Pevsner * (1884–1962), Russian painter and sculptor Georges Vantongerloo * (1886–1965), Belgian painter, sculptor and architect Hans Arp * (1886–1966), Alsatian painter and sculptor Theodor Werner (1886–1969), German painter Kurt Schwitters * (1887–1948), Merz artist from Hanover Josef Albers (1888–1976), German painter Willi Baumeister * (1889–1955), German painter and set designer Sophie Taeuber-Arp * (1889–1943), Swiss-French painter, designer and architect El Lissitzky (1890–1941), Russian painter, photographer and architect Carl Buchheister (1890–1964), German painter Marlow Moss (1889–1958), British painter and sculptor

Naum Gabo (1890–1977), Russian sculptor, painter and architect Paule Vézelay (1892–1984), British painter Jeanne Kosnick-Kloss (1892–1966) Władysław Strzemiński (1893–1952), Polish constructivist Ben Nicholson (1894–1982), English painter Evie Hone (1894–1955) Laure Garcin (1896–1978) István Beöthy (also Etienne Béothy) (1897–1961), Hungarian sculptor and architect Mainie Jellett (1897-1944) Alexander Calder (1898–1976), American sculptor; Mobiles Katarzyna Kobro (1898–1951), Russian and then Polish constructivist, sculptor and painter Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart (1899–1962), German painter, sculptor and writer Lucio Fontana (1899–1968), Italian painter and sculptor Kurt Seligmann (1900–1962) Swiss-American painter, graphic artist and author Barbara Hepworth (1903–1975), English sculptor Jean Hélion (1904–1987) French painter; Art concret Wolfgang Paalen (1905–1959) Austrian-Mexican painter and surrealist Leon Tutundijan (1905–1968), Armenian artist; Art concret Max Bill (1908–1994), Swiss architect, artist and designer Théo Kerg (1909–1993), Luxembourg painter, graphic artist, sculptor and glass designer Taro Okamoto (1911–1996)

NB: Former members of the “Cercle et Carré” group are marked with an asterisk.

Literature and Sources

• Abstraction-Création (exhibition catalog). Westphalian State Museum, Münster 1978
• Münster, Anke: Art is play and deep seriousness. The imaginist Alexandra Povòrina (1885–1963). Life and Work (Diss.), Gießen 2004
• Murken-Altrogge, Christa / Murken, Axel Hinrich: Processes of Freedom - From Expressionism to Soul and Body Art. Cologne 1985, ISBN 3-7701-1756-5

Web links

Commons : Abstraction-Création  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ reprint: Abstraction, creation, art non-figurative  : 1-5, Verlag Sl. : Sn., 1932-1936, Paris, 5 no. In 1 v., OCLC number: 150616164 worldcat
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} M. Lluïsa Faxedas-Brujats: Mujeres artistas de la vanguardia internacional: el caso de Abstraction-Création (1931-1936) . Women artists of the international avant-garde: the case of Abstraction-Création (1931-1936). September 3, 2014, p. 487 (Spanish).