Art Front

Introduction.

Art Front was a short-lived American art magazine published by the Artists Union in New York. About twenty-five issues appeared between November 1934 and December 1937.

In early 1934 a group called the Artists Committee of Action formed to protest Nelson Rockefeller's destruction of Diego Rivera's mural Man at the Crossroads; Hugo Gellert, Stuart Davis, Zoltan Hecht and Lionel S. Reiss were among the leaders. In the autumn of 1934 Herman Baron, director of the American Contemporary Art gallery, was asked to join them; he offered to publish a bulletin for the group, like those he had previously issued through his gallery. Gellert suggested to the Artists Union that they should collaborate on the project. The name Art Front was suggested by Herbert Kruckman. The first issue appeared in November 1934. Baron was managing editor, with an editorial committee of sixteen, eight from each of the partner groups. Apart from Gellert, Davis and Hecht, those from the Artists Committee of Action were 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.

The magazine and many of the artists associated with it, were politically aligned with the Communist Party, USA

—Wikipedia

Also see What the Artists' Union of the 1930s Can Teach Us Today a more descriptive essay on the Art Front by Nicolas Lampert

Archivist's Note:

Most of these digital images were scanned from a microfilm made by the NY Public Library of its holdings of Art Front. Scanning done at Doe Library, UC Berkeley microforms department on a ScanPro 2000. However, December 1935 and February 1936 were scanned (using an Epson 10000 XL flat bed scanner) from original paper issues very kindly and generously loaned to the Riazanov Library digital archive project by Lorne Bair of Lorne Bair Rare Books. Note the virtually day-night difference in the quality of images scanned from microfilm vs those scanned from original paper. These scans were provided by Marty Goodman / The Riazanov Library digital archive project.

This list of issues below in text format

Volume 1 all 8 page - tabloid-like issues

Vol. 1, No. 1, Nov, 1934

Vol. 1, No. 2, Jan, 1935

Vol. 1, No. 3, Feb, 1935

Vol. 1, No. 4, Apr, 1935

Vol. 1, No. 5, May, 1935

Vol. 1, No. 6, Jul, 1935

Vol. 1, No 7, Nov, 1935

Volume 2 Mostly 16 page issues, closer to letter size

Vol. 2, No. 1, Dec, 1935 (scanned from original issues)

Vol. 2, No. 2, Jan, 1936

Vol. 2, No. 3, Feb, 1936 (scanned from original issues)

Vol. 2, No. 4, Mar, 1936

Vol. 2, No. 5, Apr, 1936

Vol. 2, No. 6, May, 1936

Vol. 2, No. 7, Jun, 1936 (says it's v2n06)

Vol. 2, No. 8, Jul, 1936 (says it's v2n07)

Vol. 2, No. 9, Sep-Oct, 1936

Vol. 2, No. 10, Nov, 1936

Vol. 2, No. 11, Dec, 1936 [20 pgs]

Vol. 2, No. 12, Jan, 1936 [20 pgs]

Volume 3 mostly 20pgs, one as many as 32pgs

Vol. 3, No. 1, Feb, 1937

Vol. 3, No. 2, Mar, 1937 (Missing back cover)

Vol. 3 No. 3 , Apr 1937 (Not available)

Vol. 3, No. 4, May 1937 32 pgs. (Missing pages 3-4)

Vol. 3, No. 5, Jun-Jul, 1937 (Missing page 3 and page 6)

Vol 3. No. 6 (Aug? Sept?) 1937 (Not Available)

Vol. 3, No. 7, Oct, 1937

Vol. 3, No. 8, Dec, 1937 (Missing pages 21-22)

issues may be missing on microfilm from Vol 3. Issue numbering gets hard to figure out because of this, and because some issues present are missing pages 3 and 4, and the vol and issue number is found on page 3.

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