Page 12 - Studio International - September 1974

ART FRONT

During the bleak days of the Great Depression
the Roosevelt Administration resorted to large-
scale work relief projects as a partial response to
the severe economic crisis. A traumatized
Congress gave the President a relatively free
hand to innovate programmes in the hope that
he might turn the economy around and relieve
the suffering of the unemployed. One of the
more innovative — and controversial —
programmes was massive employment of artists
by the government. In an effort to gain and
expand government patronage, a group of
militant artists formed a trade union of painters,
sculptors, and print-makers, many of whom
were close to or influenced by the Communist
Party. The dynamic, colourful Artists Union
soon became known for its aggressive tactics —
engaging in mass picketing, strikes, and sit-ins.
For three years, the union published Art Front,
probably the liveliest art periodical of the time.
In the fall of 1934, Hugo Gellert invited
Herman Baron, who exhibited many of the
left-wing artists in his American Contemporary
Artists gallery, to join the executive board of
the Artists' Committee of Action, a loose
confederation of artists organized to protest the
destruction of the Diego Rivera mural at the
Rockefeller Center which had included a portrait
of Lenin. Subsequent to the demonstration, the
artists decided to continue working as a group
to agitate for a municipally supported but
artist-operated gallery. Gellert, well known as a
left-wing artist, was elected chairman, Lionel
Reiss became secretary, and Zoltan Hecht was
chosen as treasurer. It was a more or less 'paper'
organization controlled by Gellert who was
able to attract large numbers of artists to
demonstrations and to solicit the support of
distinguished public figures. Baron, a former
writer and editor of trade magazines, published
an art bulletin under the aegis of his gallery. He
offered Gellert the use of the bulletin; Gellert
suggested to the executive board of the Artists in time to publicize a mass demonstration to be May, July, and November 1935), printed in an
Union that an official journal would be useful to held at City Hall on 27 October, 1934. The awkward, oversize eleven-by-sixteen-inch
both organizations — the board agreed. readers of Art Front were assured it would be format, each issue consisting of eight pages. The
The first item of business at the meeting was unlike any other art magazine: generous size of the magazine was appropriate
the selection of a name for the proposed `Without one exception, however, these for street sales during demonstrations; the
publication. After several unsuccessful proposals periodicals support outworn economic concepts posterlike covers were broadly designed and
the word 'front' seemed to be in the air. The as a basis for the support of art which victimize highly visible. The February 1935 issue had
Russians had a literary magazine called On and destroy art. The urgent need for a several photographs of a street demonstration in
Guard, and Mayakovsky edited a magazine publication which speaks for the artist, battles which members of the Artists' Union can be
called Left Front. New York artists were more for his economic security and guides him in his seen hawking Art Front.
likely to be familiar with the organ of the artistic efforts is self-evident.'1 During the founding of the magazine,
Chicago Reed Club, also known as Left Front The magazine sold for five cents a copy with a tensions had developed between the Artists'
and published in 1933 and 1934. Herb yearly subscription rate of sixty cents. The Committee of Action, with its primarily
Kruckman suggested Art Front as the title intention clearly was to publish monthly, but professional goals, and the Artists' Union, with
and it was immediately adopted. An editorial the first volume of seven issues appeared its primarily economic goals. The first issue was
committee was formed with Baron as managing intermittently over a period of thirteen months almost exclusively devoted to promoting the
editor, and the first issue was planned to appear (November 1934, and January, February, April, programmes of both groups, but there was
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