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40 August 1983 Marxism Today

The Artists International Association(AIA) was founded in 1933 by two youngpainters Cliff Rowe and Misha Black, whoearned their living as commercial artists.Their aim was to mobilise 'the Interna-tional Unity of Artists Against ImperialistWar on the Soviet Union, Fascism andColonial Oppression'. By the outbreak of 

the Spanish Civil War in 1936, The AIAhad over 600 members and had evolved intoa 'United Front Against Fascism and War'.

Each year they organised an exhibitiondevoted to a major social or political theme,such as 'The Social Scene', 'Artists AgainstFascism and War', 'Artists Help Spain' and'Art for the People'. Although the organisersshared a basic programme for the develop-ment of a new politicised realism, theseexhibitions accommodated a wide range of styles, from surrealists and constructiviststo post-impressionists and members of theRoyal Academy. It was a social group ratherthan a stylistic one, and any artist willing toexhibit their work for a political motive waswelcomed.

The AIA published a regular bulletin ornewsletter throughout its history, and thisprovides an unbroken link between theanti-fascism of the thirties and the cold warof the late 40s and early 50s. A lot of material has already been published on theinfluence of socialist ideas on artists andwriters in the thirties but the consequencesof this trend in the immediate postwaryears are still relatively obscure. Yet it was

events between 1945 and 1953 that initiatedthe debate on atomic weapons anddisarmament and saw the division of Europe between East and West.

'Britain between East and West' was thetheme of a special issue of Contact  magazinein 1946. Several members of the AIA werecontributors and the leader article byRichard Grossman juxtaposed the views of 'Westerners' and 'Easterners';

'TheProgressives,including. . .thebulk of the Labour movement, reject decisivelythe whole idea of an Anglo-Americanalliance. . .not only Germany, the wholeworld will be parcelled out between thetwo contending grand alliances. In theend this would mean a war in which theBritish Isles would become merely a partof the Western European 'no man's land'between the two great contending powers!The Left's call for a postwar Britain

independent of both the Soviet Union andAmerica, the two wartime allies, disinte-grated under the economic pressures of land lease and the Marshall Plan. Thechange of attitudes towards the SovietUnion first appeared as a popular debate

THE ARTIST'S

INTERNATIONAL

ASSOCIATION

Lynda Morrissurrounding the 'Soviet Composers Con-troversy' early in 1948. It began withofficial Soviet disapproval of Muradeli'sopera Great Friendship performed as part of the celebration of the 30th anniversary of the October Revolution. The criticism of formalist tendencies in the music led to aconference involving Zhdanov, Shostakovich,Prokofiev and Khachaturyan organised bythe Central Committee of the CPSU.

Coverage of the controversy in Britain led

to crude juxtaposition of the individualfreedom of artists against the Sovietemphasis on the social responsibility of theartist to work in a widely accessible form.The April 1948 Newsletter  gave the AIA'sposition:

'...the treatment of the recent contro-versy by the press has been more in thenature of anti-soviet propaganda then fairstatement of fact . . . - - We cannotsimply translate Soviet conditions intoour own terms .

(Left to right) James Fitton, Ruskin Spear, JohnBerger and John Minton selecting pictures for 'TheMost Beautiful Woman in England', Daily Express

Competition, 1953.

This debate was superceded by thformation of a communist government Czechoslovakia. This was a particularsensitive issue as the US had originalintended to include the Czech in thMarshall Plan. The back page of the samissue of the  Newsletter   contained a lettcalling on the AIA to protest against th

methods used to bring about the change government in Czechoslovakia. The neissue carried the first reference to Hiroshimin a report on the first public meeting hein Britain at Caxton Hall in April 1948 discuss atomic weapons.

In June 1948 the Berlin Blockade begaand in August the First World CulturCongress for Peace was held at Wroclaw Poland. 400 delegates from 45 countriattended, including Picasso, who made hmaiden speech for the peace movement. BOctober of that year an extraordina

general meeting was called to discuss tsuspension of the political clause in tAIA's constitution, 'for an experimentperiod of two years'. The resolution wdefeated by 43 to 58; however the vote wdeclared null and void because of the loss a list of postal votes. A report of the EGMappeared in Tom Driberg's column

 Reynold's News as 'Cold War Rages in thAIA'.

The AIA's traditional role as a peagroup came to be seen as a controversipolitical issue, many members resigned ancalls increased for it to be an artis

exhibiting body and to leave politics to thpoliticians. A second EGM was held to voon the political clause and the votinresulted in a dead heat. It was decided thall political matters should be referred the full membership, and that was suchtime consuming procedure that it effectivecensored any future political action.

The second World Peace Congress wheld in Paris in April 1949, and Picassolithograph of a white fan tailed pigeobecame the international symbol of peacIn August the Soviet Union exploded thefirst atom bomb, three or four years aheof the US expectations. The word peabegan to appear in the British press inverted commas, the British Peace Committee was widely referred to as communist front and distinguished froQuaker inspired pacifist organisations. October NATO was formed and USAbases with the capacity for atomic weapowere prepared in Britain. In June 1950 tKorean War broke out, and in October that year, the AIA held a third EGM whipassed a resolution condemning the failuof the British Peace Committee to prote

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against communist aggression in Korea.In November 1950, as the Korean War

entered its most savage period, a ThirdWorld Peace Congress was planned inSheffield. The  Daily Minor   reprinted infull a speech Attlee made under theheadline 'Attlee's Exposure In Full: TheGreat Red Peace Lie'. Hundreds of 

delegates were refused permission to enterthe country, including Paul Robeson, PabloNeruda and Louis Aragon. Picasso wasallowed in, but the BPC decided to cancelthe congress and reconvene it a week laterin Warsaw. Considerable controversysurrounded Picasso's visit after he refusedto attend a private view of an exhibition of his work organised by the Arts Council,because it was funded by the samegovernment that had wrecked the SheffieldCongress.

In the 1930s the AIA members haddivided between the realists led by

Anthony Blunt and the Surrealists led byHerbert Read over the relevance of Guernica  to the lives then being lost inSpain. When Paris was liberated, Picasso

 joined the communist party and his tragic,grey still life paintings from the years of theOccupation had a great influence onyounger artists. Cliff Rowe recalled the wayPicasso became a symbolic figure forsocialist artists in the years after 1945:

'I was for Socialist Realism but not their(Russian) kind. Picasso was a commu-nist, in his way, but it all got cloudedover. My interests were in Picasso, Legerand in primitive and prehistoric art.'In August 1950 John Berger showed

some paintings in a group exhibition of young artists at the AIA gallery. His work showed the influence of Picasso in the'thick black lines' surrounding the figures.Berger became an active member of theAIA and his name appears among themembers who called on the AIA to takeimmediate steps to organise a peaceexhibition early in 1951. But peace wasnow a political issue, and an organisationwhich supported peace would be widely

seen to be communist front. A peaceexhibition was held later in the year buttook place under the auspices of a neworganisation, Artists for Peace, whosemembership came almost entirely from theleft of the AIA. Artists For Peace held threeannual exhibitions in 1951, 1952 and 1953.In 1955 they brought the// iroshoma Panelsby two Japanese artists to Britain for awidely acclaimed tour of major cities. CNDwas not founded until 1957.

Artists for Peace did attract a great dealof publicity, not all of which was politically

Julian Trevelyan,  Inside Russia.  Scene for a mural at The British Restaurant, Hammersm

hostile and the exhibition was considered asuccess for the remaining politically activemembers of the AIA. In response it wasproposed that the AIA should organise anexhibition on 'the prevailing controversybetween those whose work is abstract andthose with a humanist approach . . .'The

proposal was ridiculed on political grounds,but it was accpted by the membership withthe qualification suggested by John Berger,that there should be more than twocategories: 'For instance, we might haveRealistic, Abstract and Subjective .'

The exhibition, called The Mirror and theSquare,  took place in December 1952 andranged from socialist realism, throughCornish and Mediterranean 'Compositions'to pure abstraction. The  Daily Worker called the exhibition an 'Approach toLunacy', saying it was:

'...a sorry example of the ailments that

now prevail in British art, of theprofound conflict that exists which hasbeen transformed into gradation of styles.'It was in this climate of the division on

the Left in postwar Britain, that the'Kitchen Sink' painters emerged with astyle of 'realism' more influenced byexpressionism and Picasso's thick black lines than the established tradition of socialist realism. Berger became the leaderof the group and much more famous thanany of the artists involved. His subjectivity

encouraged a view of realism as a styrather than realism as an 'attitude to life,the major social and political attitudes the time'. His subjectivity led hieventually to write a book on Picasso whichardly referred to the major role Picasplayed in the immediate postwar pea

movement.The Mirror and the Square shows the wbitter political divisions were shrouded in juxtaposition of formal styles in art. Texhibition was arranged to conceal ideolocal disunity over the peace issue, the atobomb and" the East West confrontation.reduced these major political realities to tlevel of an aesthetic argument.

Finally in December 1953, six years afthe Soviet Composers Controversy, begthe debate over the political clause in tAIA constitution, the words 'politicactivity' were replaced by the wor

'intellectual freedom'. The AIA continuas an apolitical artists organisation un1971.

The story of the Artists International Associati1933-53 is a touring exhibition organised Lynda Morris and Robert Radford for Museum of Modern Art in Oxford where it wfirst shown in April and May. It will travel Bradford 16 July — 4 September, NottinghamOctober — 20 November, Hull 26 November tJanuary, Edinburgh 21 January — 25 Februaand to the Camden Arts Centre in London March — 22 April 1984.