Abstraction-Création - Oxford Definition

The name taken by a group of abstract painters and sculptors formed in Paris in 1931 in the wake of the first international exhibition of abstract art held there in 1930. The association, whose membership at one time rose to 400, was a loose one embracing a wide range of non-figurative art including Constructivism (Gabo, Pevsner, and Lissitzky), Neo-Plasticism (Mondrian), the expressive abstraction of Kandinsky, and some forms of abstract Surrealism. Founded as a successor to the Cercle et Carré, it was intended, as its name implies, to encourage ‘creative’ abstraction. It arranged group exhibitions and published an illustrated annual Abstraction-Création: Art non-figuratif 1932–6. The emphasis increasingly fell on geometrical rather than expressive or lyrical abstraction due to the predominance of the Constructivists and the supporters of De Stijl. After c.1936 the activities of the association dwindled as some of the leading Constructivists moved from France to England.