English group founded in London in 1933 as the Artists International to promote united action among artists and designers on social and political issues, and active from 1953 to 1971. In its original formulation it pursued an identifiably Marxist programme, with its members producing satirical illustrations for Left Review (e.g. see exh. cat., pp. 20–21) and propaganda material for various left-wing organizations. Reconstituted as the AIA in 1935, it avoided identification with any particular style, attracting broad support from artists working in both a traditional and modernist vein in a series of large group exhibitions on political and social themes, beginning with 1935 Exhibition (Artists Against Fascism & War) in 1935 (London, 28 Soho Square). Support was given to the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War (1936–9) and to the Artists’ Refugee Committee through exhibitions and other fund-raising activities, and efforts were made to increase popular access to art through travelling exhibitions, public murals and a series of mass-produced offset lithographs entitled Everyman Prints, published by the AIA in 1940 (see exh. cat., p. 57).

• Artists International Association (AIA)
  • England, §III, 6: Painting and graphic arts, after c 1914
  • Lithography, §II, 2(ii)(c): Fine art developments, 20th century
  • Mural, §1(ii): Europe, after c 1930
  • members
    • Medley, Robert
    • Peri, Laszlo
  • works
    • Social realism