The Great Depression and the rise of fascism in the 1930s caused politics and arts to collide as cultural liberals united to work on common goals.
At a meeting of the John Reed Club, the idea of an American Artists' Congress was discussed and twelve of those present were given the task of organizing it.
Almost all of those involved with creating the AAC were established figures of the Communist left and had some connection with the John Reed Clubs.
[1] Politically and artistically, the congress attempted to distinguish itself from the John Reed clubs, which were specifically radical and rigidly adhered to a particular set of views.
Their specific concerns were violations of international civil liberties, the inadequacy of government programs, censorship, and the decline of traditional forms of patronage.
The organization urged lifting the American embargo of arms to the Loyalists and revising the Neutrality Act of 1937, which prohibited such aid.
[1] Also in 1937, they organized theme exhibitions referring to the Spanish Civil War, which raised money to send ambulances, food, and clothing supplies to the Loyalists.
In 1939, the AAC was able to bring Pablo Picasso's painting Guernica to New York to be exhibited at the Valentine Gallery to raise money for the Spanish Refugee Relief Campaign.
[1] These attempts to help the Loyalist cause created organizational motivation for antifascist artwork that depicted images in Spain.