COMRADES IN ART

Artists unite against oppression.

Biographer Friend examines a robust artistic resistance to fascism by the Artists International Association, which formed in London in 1933 and took as its mission the “Unity of Artists against Fascism and War and the Suppression of Culture.” Its founders included several artists who had been to the Soviet Union and returned to England inspired by the mutual support among artists in that country. Fearful of the growing threat of fascism throughout Europe, they proclaimed that “now was the time for their generation of artists to organize” in order “to serve shared political goals through their art” and support progressive causes. Focusing on the activities of the AIA from 1933 to 1943, Friend investigates similar organizations outside of England: the International Bureau of Revolutionary Artists in Moscow, for example, and in the U.S., the John Reed Clubs, the Unemployed Artists Group, the Public Works of Art Project, and the American Artists’ Congress. The AIA forged connections with these groups as it grew to become an increasingly visible force in British culture, producing publications and mounting exhibitions, many to raise funds for combatants in Spain and Russia. In its first year, membership tripled; the roster included Julian and Quentin Bell, Augustus John, Henry Moore, and art critics Herbert Read and Kenneth Clark, along with scores of other painters, sculptors, writers, and illustrators whose work appears in the book’s more than 200 illustrations. Many contributors to the AIA’s efforts were 20th-century stars, such as Picasso, who sent his Guernica to be exhibited in London; muralist Diego Rivera; surrealists Joan Miró and Paul Klee; Ben Shahn; and Virginia and Leonard Woolf, who supported the organization. A biographical appendix identifies less familiar participants.

A stirring, deeply researched history of artists’ response to crisis.