Abbey of Creteil

The Abbaye of Creteil was a founded Phalanstère with the autumn 1906 by the poets Georges Duhamel and Charles Vildrac. It was closed by its members the January 28th 1908.

Being inspired in particular by the Abbey of Thélème, imagined by Rabelais in Gargantua, Georges Duhamel and Charles Vildrac intallèrent themselves with Creteil in a house surrounded by a park along the Marne (street of the Mill).

Their project was to found a place of freedom and friendship, favourable with the Artistic creation and arts person, far from the modes and of conventions of their time.

Around the founders a first group gathered: writers (Rene Arcos, Henri-Martin Barzun and Alexandre Mercereau) and a painter (Albert Gleizes). Henri-Martin Barzun put his fortune at the service as of his/her friends.

The artists gave each other a concrete goal: to create a Publisher likely to guarantee an income to them. It is the typographer Lucien Linard, a friend of Albert Gleizes, who provides printing works. From January 1907 in January 1908 a score of books was printed by the Abbey.

Other writers and artists enriched the group: the poet Pierre Jean Jouve, the musician Albert Doyen, a draftsman, Berthold Mahn, the painter Henri Doucet and Leon Balzagette, the translator in France of the Sheets of grass of the American poet Walt Whitman.

The writer Jules Romans, founder of the Unanimism, was a friend of the group.

In spite of the interest caused by their company, young people missed money and were obliged to close their Abbey.

The publisher survived some time. But especially the friends continued to meet once a month at the time of a “dinner of the buddies”.

Some works printed by the editions of the Abbey

External bond

  • Site of the Friends of Georges Duhamel and the Abbey of Creteil

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