In the early 1930s, as Britain faced economic devastation from the Great Depression, a group of artists formed a revolutionary collective that would challenge both fascism and the traditional art world establishment. The Artists International Association (AIA), founded by working-class artists including Pearl Binder, Clifford Rowe, Misha Black, James Fitton, James Boswell, James Holland, Edward Ardizzone, Peter Laszlo Peri, and Edith Simon, emerged from frustration with bank closures, steep pay cuts, and widespread hunger marches that defined the era.

The organization's communist-influenced founding principles were shaped by direct exposure to alternative economic systems. Binder and Rowe had both lived in the Soviet Union, where they witnessed workers' cooperatives that helped them envision new ways to organize labor and artistic production. As founding member James Holland explained, British artists faced a stark choice: "cut-throat competition for what crumbs of patronage remained" or "using their abilities to discredit a system that makes art and culture dependent on the caprices of money markets."

The group originally called itself Artists International and functioned as what founding member James Boswell described as "a mixture of agit-prop body, Marxist discussion group, exhibitions [organizer] and anti-war, anti-fascist outfit." However, as detailed in Andy Friend's new book "Comrades in Art: Artists Against Fascism, 1933-1943," the organization faced a critical scaling problem. As membership grew and the fascist threat intensified, the group rebranded in 1935 to Artists International Association, hoping to attract broader, more ideologically diverse support.

This strategic shift mirrored similar decisions made by leftist arts organizations across the Atlantic. The American Artists Congress, a US Communist arts organization founded in 1936, made comparable choices to "elevate coalition-building above [the] generation of a distinctively proletarian culture," prioritizing anti-fascism over overt Communist messaging. However, dissenting members in both organizations worried that this "big tent" approach risked diluting their core revolutionary values—debates that echo contemporary discussions about whether leftist movements should compromise with mainstream liberal politics.

The organization's commitment to maintaining cultural life during wartime was dramatically illustrated during their 1940 annual members exhibition, "The Face of Britain." Scheduled to open on September 13 in London, the exhibition faced an unprecedented challenge when Germany began its bombing campaign of the city on September 7, marking the start of The Blitz. Just days after the bombing commenced, two bombs crashed through the gallery roof, setting the parquet floor ablaze, damaging paintings, and forcing a week-long delay.

Despite the destruction and ongoing danger, four AIA members worked through the hazardous conditions to hang the exhibition. Friend describes their determination to proceed as resembling "a delayed shock response after a serious accident, as when a bloodied driver calmly tries to exchange car insurance information while wondering why witnesses are imploring him to seek medical treatment." This incident exemplified the group's profound desire for normalcy during extraordinary times.

Throughout the war years, the AIA's efforts proved surprisingly vital to British morale and cultural life. Friend documents how Britons expressed gratitude that cultural activities persisted despite dire conditions, even in curtailed forms. The early 1940s witnessed an unexpected surge in popular interest in art throughout both London and the broader country. This cultural renaissance stemmed not only from material factors—empty shops, fewer restaurants, suspended professional sports—but also from existential circumstances where "life had never been so uncertain, so potentially ephemeral and, amid personal danger, was being lived with a hitherto unknown intensity."

Despite evidence that "a clear majority of the country's leading artists [participated] in its collective endeavors," Friend describes the AIA as "curiously overlooked" in art historical accounts. Prominent international artists like Pablo Picasso, Stuart Davis, and Diego Rivera made appearances in the organization's activities, yet the group lacks the recognition of other art movements. Unlike typical art history narratives focused on individual genius, "Comrades in Art" functions as what Friend calls "a true group biography," with a cast of characters so extensive that few individuals stand out from the collective effort.

The AIA's historical neglect reflects broader biases in art world scholarship and commerce. Friend attributes this oversight partly to "the apolitical bias that colours so much monographic writing in a cultural era where art is an asset class and competitive individualism—and the banal pursuit of celebrity—thrives largely unquestioned." The group's most extensive previous museum treatment occurred in 1983 with "The Story of the AiA, Artists International Association, 1933-1953" at what was then The Museum of Modern Art, Oxford. Currently, the Tate Britain is showing a single-room exhibition connected to Friend's book, titled "Artists International: The First Decade."

The more fundamental reason for the AIA's historical marginalization lies in their aesthetic and political priorities. The organization valued social and political objectives over the formal and aesthetic innovations that typically define the 20th-century Western art canon. Their approach offered no new "-ism" to build upon Constructivism, Futurism, or Cubism. For a time, the AIA's slogan was "Conservative in art and radical in politics," and their predominantly social realist aesthetic, visible throughout Friend's generously illustrated book, challenges the simplified narrative that Western art progressed inevitably toward abstraction.

Beyond serving as "the bell on the fire engine," as co-founder James Fitton described their political alarm-sounding function, the AIA distinguished itself through its commitment to art as an inherently enjoyable human activity and its dedication to improving conditions for artistic engagement. Their various initiatives included organizing artists, making art affordable through prints and lithographs, and staging an exhibition inside a London Underground station to increase public accessibility. These efforts represented attempts to improve standard practices within their sphere of influence, embodying the positive aspect of the desire for normalcy—working toward "a future worth the struggle."