Salon des Réalités Nouvelles

Salon des Réalités Nouvelles
Realitesnouvelles · Public domain · source
Name	Salon des Réalités Nouvelles
Native name	Salon des Réalités Nouvelles
Location	Paris
Established	1939
Founders	Nassos Daphnis; Jean Arp; Albert Gleizes
Type	Abstract art exhibition

Salon des Réalités Nouvelles is an annual Parisian exhibition promoting abstraction founded in 1939 by artists and critics reacting to figurative trends and political upheavals. It emerged from networks around the Cercle et Carré circle and the Surrealist exile community, connecting artists associated with Constructivism, De Stijl, and Dada across Paris, New York City, Zurich, Amsterdam, and London. The salon served as a platform where figures from the Bauhaus diaspora and émigré communities displayed works alongside sculptors tied to the École de Paris, influencing collectors, critics, and institutions such as the Musée National d'Art Moderne, the Tate Gallery, the Museum of Modern Art, the Centre Pompidou, and the Guggenheim Museum.

History

The early history links proponents from the 1910s and 1920s avant‑garde such as Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, Kazimir Malevich, Theo van Doesburg, and Aleksandr Rodchenko to émigré networks in Paris and émigration events like the interwar Treaty of Versailles aftermath and wartime displacements. Founders including Jean Arp, Albert Gleizes, and Nassos Daphnis organized salons influenced by earlier exhibitions such as Salon des Indépendants, Salon d'Automne, and the Armory Show, while responding to debates involving critics like Clement Greenberg, Herbert Read, and curators at the Museum of Modern Art. Postwar evolution saw interactions with movements and moments tied to Abstract Expressionism, Tachisme, Concrete Art, and exhibitions at venues like the Pavillon de l'Esprit Nouveau and the Venice Biennale.

Organization and Membership

The organizational structure grew from informal collectives that echoed groups including Cercle et Carré, the De Stijl circle, and the legacy of Bauhaus, with membership dynamics involving artists, critics, and patrons connected to institutions such as the Fondation Maeght, Galerie Maeght, Galerie Denise René, and the Galerie Louise Leiris. Membership lists over decades have intersected with artists associated with Cobra, CoBrA, Les Automatistes, and émigrés from Germany, Russia, and Greece who had ties to academies like the École des Beaux-Arts and galleries like Galleries Drouant-David. Administrative functions were shaped by figures linked to municipal and national bodies including the Ministry of Culture (France), local councils in Paris, and advisory relationships with collectors such as Peggy Guggenheim, Gertrude Stein, and patrons resembling Samuel Courtauld.

Exhibitions and Venues

Exhibitions occurred in Parisian sites with histories tied to institutional neighbors like the Palais de Tokyo, the Grand Palais, the Palais des Beaux-Arts, and institutions recalled in the circuits of the Salon d'Automne and Salon des Indépendants. Touring exhibitions reached international venues connected to the Museum of Modern Art, the Tate Modern, the Kunsthalle Bern, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and the Guggenheim Bilbao, while collaborative shows intersected with programs at the Venice Biennale, the Documenta exhibitions in Kassel, and festivals such as Art Basel. Curatorial practices reflected dialogues with museum directors and curators associated with the Centre Pompidou, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the National Gallery of Canada.

Artistic Styles and Movements

The salon foregrounded non-figurative currents including varieties of Geometric Abstraction, Lyrical Abstraction, Concrete Art, and connections to Constructivism and Suprematism, engaging ideas advanced by theorists and artists like Sonia Delaunay, Robert Delaunay, Fernand Léger, Stuart Davis, and Alexander Calder. It provided contexts parallel to Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism, and European postwar tendencies such as Tachisme and Art Informel, intersecting with pedagogical lineages from the Bauhaus and dialogues involving critics like Harold Rosenberg and Arnold Hauser. Sculpture and relief work shown at the salon invoked precedents from Naum Gabo, Antoni Tàpies, Jean Arp, and Constantin Brâncuși, while graphic and kinetic experiments echoed practices by Alexander Calder, Victor Vasarely, Julio Le Parc, and Yves Klein.

Notable Artists and Contributions

Key participants included a wide cast of practitioners who shaped 20th‑century abstraction: Jean Arp, Albert Gleizes, Piet Mondrian, Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, Theo van Doesburg, Sonia Delaunay, Robert Delaunay, Alexander Calder, Naum Gabo, Antoni Tàpies, Victor Vasarely, Yves Klein, Julio Le Parc, Pierre Soulages, Georges Vantongerloo, Fernand Léger, Nassos Daphnis, Stuart Davis, Arshile Gorky, Hans Hofmann, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, Constantin Brâncuși, Bruno Munari, Giorgio de Chirico, László Moholy-Nagy, Alexander Rodchenko, Gustav Klimt, Paul Klee, Max Ernst, André Breton, Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Salvador Dalí, Lucio Fontana, Jean Fautrier, Antonin Artaud, Alfredo Ramos Martínez, Fernand Léger, André Lhote, André Masson, Jean Dubuffet, Raoul Dufy, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Édouard Vuillard, Pierre Bonnard, Paul Cézanne, Émile Bernard, Camille Pissarro, Georges Seurat, Henri Rousseau, Gustave Courbet, and Ingres—figures who contextualize the salon within the broader modernist canon and whose work influenced the salon’s standards for abstraction, exhibition design, and critical reception.

Category:Art exhibitions in Paris