Réalités nouvelles

Réalités nouvelles ("New Realities") was an exhibition society and salon devoted to pure, non-objective abstract art. The association arose in Paris: the first initiative under this name appeared in the late 1930s, and the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles was officially founded in 1946, in the post-war era when abstraction was seeking new institutional forms. The society continued the traditions of the pre-war groups Cercle et Carré and Abstraction-Création, which championed geometric, concrete abstraction against figuration and Surrealism. The annual Réalités Nouvelles salons became the main platform for non-objective artists from various countries, among them Auguste Herbin, Jean Dewasne, Sonia Delaunay, and many others. The term "concrete art," introduced earlier by Theo van Doesburg, emphasized that abstract lines, colors, and planes are not a simplification of reality but themselves constitute a new, self-sufficient "reality." The salon played an important role in the revival and dissemination of abstract art in Europe after the Second World War and continues to operate to this day.