Headquarters Wisconsin, United States | Founder James Fitton | |
The Artists' International Association (AIA) was an organisation founded in London in 1933 out of discussion among Pearl Binder, Clifford Rowe, Misha Black, James Fitton, James Boswell, James Holland and Edward Ardizzone.
History
The first meeting took place in Misha Black’s room at Seven Dials. Originally it was called Artists International, but it added the word Association to its name when it was reconstituted in 1935. It continued until 1971, but abandoned its originally objectives in 1953, thereafter existing as an exhibiting society.
Essentially set up as a radically left political organisation, the AIA embraced all styles of art both modernist and traditional, but the core committee preferenced realism. Its later aim was to promote the "Unity of Artists for Peace, Democracy and Cultural Development". It held a series of large group exhibitions on political and social themes beginning in 1935 with an exhibition entitled Artists Against Fascism and War.
The AIA supported the left-wing Republican side in the Spanish Civil War through exhibitions and other fund-raising activities. The Association was also involved in the settling of artists displaced by the Nazi regime in Germany. Many of those linked with the Association, such as Duncan Grant were also pacifists.
Another of the AIA's aims was to promote wider access to art through travelling exhibitions and public mural paintings.