‘Revolutionary Art School’ from Art Front. Vol. 1 No. 3. February, 1935.

THE mid-year exhibition of students’ work of the John Reed Club School of Art was formally opened Wednesday evening, January 23rd, with a reception at the Club Gallery, 430 Sixth Avenue. The exhibition will continue through February 6th, after the opening of the new term. It contains representative work from all the classes, including the Saturday Children’s class.

Some of the work of these youngsters in past exhibitions has shown startling political development and a refreshingly unselfconscious use of proletarian themes. Of special interest to mature artists is the work of the Political Cartoon Class and the Fresco Mural Class, which are the only classes of the kind in the city, and which are particularly adapted to the expression of art with social content, which the school consistently fosters. Artists who are interested in observing the work of the fresco group may do so on Sunday afternoons while the exhibition is on, from 2 to 5 o’clock, The exhibition is open from 2 to 5 P.M. daily, and Tuesday evenings from 7 to 9 P.M.

Three new courses are announced to begin with the opening of the new term on Monday, February 4th. A lecture and laboratory course on the “Chemistry of Artists’ Media” will be conducted by Frederick Rogers, who previously gave the course at the California School of Fine Arts. Actual tests will be made for permanency of various types of colors and finishes, and a palette of colors will be ground in the laboratory which will provide students with colors for their own use for some time. A course in the woodcut will be given by H. Glintenkamp, and a class in Poster Design and Lettering, which will include work in silk-screen reproduction, will be given by Charles Dibner, Joseph Kaplan, and others.

The school, which is in its fifth year, offers this year for the first time a complete curriculum and complete schedule of day, evening, and week-end classes. The steady growth of the school from twice-a-week evening life classes several years ago, to a full-blown, full-time, self-sustaining school, is evidence of the fact that the school is filling the need for a place where students are encouraged not only to develop their talent, but to put that talent to active use in the social conflicts of today.

The complete list of courses includes: Drawing and Painting from Life; Mural Painting and Composition; Sculpture; Political Cartoon; Lithography; Chemistry of Artists’ Media; Woodcut; Poster Design and Lettering. Members of the regular faculty and guest instructors include Nicolai Cikovsky, A. Harritan, Aaron Goodelman, H. Glintenkamp, James Guy, Anton Refregier, Phil Bard, Jacob Burck, Kenneth Chamberlais, Hugo Gellert, William Gropper, Russell Limbach, Robert Minor, Walter Quirt, William Siegal, Jacob Friedland, Louis Lozowick, Raphael Soyer, Marya Morrow, Charles Dibner, Joseph Kaplan, Maurice Sieven, Philip Reisman, Ben Shahn, Frederick Rogers, and others.

An important feature of the school this year has been a series of lectures on Wednesday evenings, covering discussions of both general and technical art matters and current happenings in economic life which will be valuable in developing a social approach to art.

Art Front was published by the Artists Union in New York between November 1934 and December 1937. Its roots were with the Artists Committee of Action formed to defend Diego Rivera’s Man at the Crossroads mural soon to be destroyed by Nelson Rockefeller. Herman Baron, director of the American Contemporary Art gallery, was managing editor in collaboration with the Artists Union in a project largely politically aligned with the Communist Party USA.. An editorial committee of sixteen with eight from each group serving. Those from the Artists Committee of Action were Hugo Gellert, Stuart Davis, Zoltan Hecht, Lionel S. Reiss, Hilda Abel, Harold Baumbach, Abraham Harriton, Rosa Pringle and Jennings Tofel, while those from the Artists Union were Boris Gorelick, Katherine Gridley, Ethel Olenikov, Robert Jonas, Kruckman, Michael Loew, C. Mactarian and Max Spivak.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/parties/cpusa/art-front/v1n03-feb-1935-Art-Front.pdf