Cambridge Exhibition: Fascism and War (1935) (McKnight Kauffer)

Rare and important catalogue for the 1935 anti-Fascism exhibition. Cover design by McKnight-Kauffer. 21cm x 14cm. Discussing the exhibition’s importance, Andy Friend writes in Comrades in Art: Artists Against Fascism 1933–1943: ‘After being shown in Cambridge, where David Low lent a set of cartoons, the third version of No More War, now dubbed The Cambridge Exhibition Against War and Fascism, opened simultaneously with the AIA show. James Boswell contributed artwork to its display on the Reichstag fire and Edward McKnight Kauffer a cover for the explanatory guide, which detailed sections on fascism’s rise in Italy and Germany; ‘semi-fascism’ in Austria and Spain; ‘Embryo Fascism – Can Fascism Come to Britain?’; fascism and culture; and the anti-fascist movement. Graphic documentary evidence shocked those who visited, and together with the art next door, it was both a powerful recruiting sergeant and a turning point. Looking back more than two decades later, Betty Rea recalled ‘we were struggling with the apathy of the profession until the Soho Square exhibition in 1935’, but the AIA strategy for organizing in stark times now had a degree of momentum.’Condition: near fine except for two neat ex-library stamps.