Steal a work by Piet Mondrian? (8)
I believe the answer is:
abstract
'steal' is the definition.
(abstracting is a kind of stealing)
'a work by piet mondrian?' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'a' is present in the answer.
'work' could be 'act' (synonyms) and 'act' is found in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for abstract that I've seen before include "Remove - what isn't tangible" , "Sketchy summary of the main points" , "hard to understand" , "Academic" , "Summary; remove" .)