Abstraction-Création was a loose association of artists formed in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 in 1931 to counteract the influence of the Surrealist group led by André Breton

André Breton

André Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....

.

Founders Theo van Doesburg

Theo van Doesburg

Theo van Doesburg was a Dutch artist, practicing in painting, writing, poetry and architecture. He is best known as the founder and leader of De Stijl.-Biography:-Early life:...

, Auguste Herbin

Auguste Herbin

Auguste Herbin was a French painter.-Biography:Born in Quiévy, Nord, he studied drawing at the École des Beaux-Arts de Lille, from 1898 to 1901, when he settled in Paris....

, Jean Hélion

Jean Hélion

Jean Hélion was a French painter whose abstract work of the 1930s established him as a leading modernist. His midcareer rejection of abstraction was followed by nearly five decades as a figurative painter...

 and Georges Vantongerloo

Georges Vantongerloo

Georges Vantongerloo was a Belgian abstract sculptor and painter and founding member of the De Stijl group.-Life:...

 started the group to foster abstract art after the trend turned to representation in the 1920s.

A non-prescriptive group of artists were involved, whose ideals and practices varied widely: Piet Mondrian

Piet Mondrian

Pieter Cornelis "Piet" Mondriaan, after 1906 Mondrian , was a Dutch painter.He was an important contributor to the De Stijl art movement and group, which was founded by Theo van Doesburg. He evolved a non-representational form which he termed Neo-Plasticism...

, Jean Arp

Jean Arp

Jean Arp / Hans Arp was a German-French, or Alsatian, sculptor, painter, poet and abstract artist in other media such as torn and pasted paper....

, Marlow Moss

Marlow Moss

Marjorie Jewel "Marlow" Moss was a British Constructivist artist who worked in painting and sculpture.-Life:Born in Kilburn, she was the daughter of Lionel Moss, a master hosier and clothier, and his wife Frannie Jacobs...

, Naum Gabo

Naum Gabo

Naum Gabo KBE, born Naum Neemia Pevsner was a prominent Russian sculptor in the Constructivism movement and a pioneer of Kinetic Art.-Early life:...

, Barbara Hepworth

Barbara Hepworth

Dame Barbara Hepworth DBE was an English sculptor. Her work exemplifies Modernism, and with such contemporaries as Ivon Hitchens, Henry Moore, Ben Nicholson, Naum Gabo she helped to develop modern art in Britain.-Life and work:Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth was born on 10 January 1903 in Wakefield,...

, Ben Nicholson

Ben Nicholson

Benjamin Lauder "Ben" Nicholson, OM was a British painter of abstract compositions , landscape and still-life.-Background and Training:...

, Kurt Schwitters

Kurt Schwitters

Kurt Hermann Eduard Karl Julius Schwitters was a German painter who was born in Hanover, Germany. Schwitters worked in several genres and media, including Dada, Constructivism, Surrealism, poetry, sound, painting, sculpture, graphic design, typography and what came to be known as...

, Wassily Kandinsky

Wassily Kandinsky

Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was an influential Russian painter and art theorist. He is credited with painting the first purely-abstract works. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics...

, Théo Kerg

Théo Kerg

Théo Kerg was a Luxembourg painter and sculptor who specialized in modern art.-Life:Born to schoolmaster in Niederkorn, in south-western Luxembourg, Théo Kerg attended school in Esch-sur-Alzette. He moved to Paris, France, in 1929 to study at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, the...

, Taro Okamoto, Paule Vézelay

Paule Vézelay

Paule Vézelay was born Marjorie Watson-Williams in Bristol. Before the First World War she trained for a short period at the Slade and then at the London School of Art. She first gained recognition as a figurative painter, had her first London show in 1921 and was invited to join the London Group...

, Hans Erni

Hans Erni

Hans Erni is a Swiss painter, designer and sculptor. Born in Lucerne, he is known in particular for illustrating postage stamps, activism, lithographs for the Swiss Red Cross, and participation on the Olympic Committee. The Hans Erni Museum, situated in the grounds of the Swiss Museum of...

, Bart van der Leck

Bart van der Leck

Bart van der Leck was a Dutch painter, designer, and ceramacist. With Theo van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian he founded the De Stijl art movement....

, Leon Tutundjian and John Wardell Power .

Five Cahiers (yearbooks) were published between 1932-36 entitled Abstraction-création: Art non-figuratif; a reprint edition of the Cahiers was published by the Arno Press, New York in 1968. Art exhibitions were also held throughout Europe.

Reading

• Alan Fowler. Constructivist Art in Britain 1913 - 2005. University of Southampton. 2006. PhD Thesis.