ALLIED ARTISTS ASSOCIATION
The Allied Artists Association, AAA, was founded in 1908 by Frank Rutter, an art critic of The Sunday Times newspaper and a devout suffragist, to provide for the exhibition and promotion of modernist art in Britain. The AAA organised exhibitions at various venues, modelled partly on European Secessionist exhibitions, and particularly the Société des Artistes Indépendants in Paris. In an advertisement 'Art and Letters' for the AAA in 1917, it was stated that the aim of the AAA was to organise exhibitions without the use of a selecting jury, with each member having 'the right to show any three works he (or she) pleases and to have one work hung on the line.' Irish painter Paul Henry (1876–1958) was a founder member of the AAA, and exhibited in its first exhibition with the London Salon at the Royal Albert Hall, London in 1908 which included works by devout suffragettes Laurie Frere, Ada Paul Ridley and Vanessa Bell (1879-1961), other later exhibitors some being held at Heal's Mansard Gallery, included Percy Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957), Christopher Nevinson (1889–1946), Thomas William Marshall (1875-1914), and Harold Gilman (1876–1919). In June 1917, the AAA held a show at the Grafton Galleries, London, where the art critic, poet, and novelist Herbert Read (1893-1968) sold several abstract drawings. The Camden Town Group had evolved from the Association in 1911 and continued with the London Salon.